The Princess Virginia Part 26

"Heaven be praised! It seems almost too good to be true. When does she go?"

"At once. That is, as soon as she can get ready. She will dine with me, and my equerry will stop behind and eat the dinner I had ordered here."

"Magnificent. Then she will go with you alone? Nothing could be better. The presence of the alleged mother as chaperon would be a drawback."

"Oh, no chaperon is needed for us two. The--er--mother remains at the hotel with a la--a companion they have, who is ill. It was--er--somewhat difficult to arrange this matter, but I don't think the plot I have in mind now will fail, provided you carry through your part as smartly as I have mine."

"You may depend upon me. Your Royal Highness is marvelous. Am I to understand that the lady goes with you quite of her own free will?"

"Quite. I flatter myself that she's rather pleased with the invitation. In a few minutes, I and the fair damsel will be spinning away for a drive in my red motor; you know, the one which I always leave at the lodge, to be ready for use whenever I choose to pay a flying visit. I shall keep her out until it's dark, to give you plenty of time, but before starting I'll telephone to my _chef_ that, after all, I sha'n't be away, and he must prepare dinner for two."

"I also will send a telephone message," said the Chancellor.

"To Leopold?"

"Yes, your Royal Highness. This time there will be no uncertainty in my words to him. They will strike home, and, even if he should not be intending to come to Kronburg to-night, they will bring him."

"You are sure you know where to catch the Emperor?"

"He'll telephone me from Felgarde, when he has found those he sought are not there, as he will; and I must be at my house to receive and answer his message. It will soon be time now."

"Very well, all that seems to arrange itself satisfactorily," said the Prince. "Our motor drive can be stretched out for an hour and a half.

The lady will then need to dress. Dinner can be kept back till half past eight, if it would suit your book to break in upon us, at the table. My dining-room isn't very grand, but it has plenty of light and color, and wouldn't make a bad background for the last act of this little drama. What do you say, Chancellor? I've always thought that your success as a stage manager of the Theater of Nations was partially due to your eye for dramatic effects."

"Such effects are not to be despised, considering the audience we cater for in that theater."

"Well, I promise you that for our little amateur play to-night, in my private theater, the footlights shall be lit, the stage set, and two of the princ.i.p.al puppets dressed and painted for the show, before nine. I suppose you can introduce the leading man by that time or a little later?"

The bristling brows drew together involuntarily. Count von Breitstein was working without scruple against the Emperor, for the Emperor's good; yet he winced at his accomplice's light jest, and it was by an effort that he kept a note of disapproval out of his voice.

"Unless I much mistake, his Majesty will order a special train, as soon as he has had my message," said he. "That and everything else falling as I confidently expect, I shall be able to bring him out to your Royal Highness's hunting lodge a little after nine."

"You'll find us at the third course," prophesied the Prince.

"Naturally, the Emperor's appearance will startle your visitor," went on the Chancellor, keenly watching the young man's extraordinarily handsome face. "She would not dare take the risk and drive out with you, great as the temptation would no doubt be, did she dream that he would learn of the escapade, and follow. Indeed, your Royal Highness must have found subtile weapons ready to your hand, that you so soon broke through the armor of her prudence. I expected much from your magnetism and resourceful wit, yet I hardly dared hope for such speedy, such unqualified success as this which now seems a.s.sured to us."

"My weapons were sharpened on my past acquaintance with the pretty lady," explained the Prince. "Otherwise the result might have been postponed for as many days as I have delayed moments, though at last, the end might have been the same."

"Not for Rhaetia. Every instant counts. Thanks to you, we shall win; for actress as this girl is, she'll find it a task beyond her powers to justify to a jealous man this evening's tete-a-tete with you."

"If she tests those powers in our presence, we can be audience and admire her histrionic talents," said the Prince, pleasantly, though with some faint, growing sign of constraint or perhaps impatience.

"There's no doubt in my mind, whatever may be the lady's conception of her part, about the final tableau. And after all, it's with that alone you concern yourself--eh, Chancellor?"

"It's that alone," echoed the old man.

"Then you would like to go and await the message. There's nothing more for us to arrange. _Au revoir_, Chancellor, till nine."

"Till nine."

"When the curtain for the last act will ring up."

The Prince held out his hand. Count von Breitstein grasped it, and then hurried to his electric carriage which had been waiting outside the hotel. A few minutes later, he was talking over the wire to the Emperor in the railway station at Felgarde.

CHAPTER XVII

THE OLDNESS OF THE CHANCELLOR

Leopold thought it more than possible that, by the time of his return to Kronburg, the Chancellor would be as anxious to wriggle out of his proposal to visit the Prince's hunting lodge, as he had been to have it accepted a few hours before.

"He sha'n't escape his humiliation, though," the Emperor told himself.

"He shall go, and he shall beg forgiveness for his suspicions, in sackcloth and ashes. Nothing else can satisfy me now."

Thinking thus, Leopold looked sharply from the window as his special slowed into the central station at Kronburg, along the track which had been kept clear for its arrival. No other train was due at the moment, therefore few persons were on the platform, and a figure in a long gray coat, with its face shadowed by a slouch hat, was conspicuous.

The Emperor had expected to see that figure; but vaguely he wished there were not so much briskness and self-confidence in the set of the ma.s.sive head and shoulders. The young man believed absolutely in his love; but he would have been gratified to detect a something of depression in the enemy's air, which he might translate as a foreknowledge of failure.

"I hope your Majesty will forgive the liberty I have taken, in coming to the station without a distinct invitation to do so," were the Chancellor's first words as he met the Emperor. "Knowing that you would almost certainly arrive by special train, I came down from my house some time ago, that I might be on hand without fail when you arrived, to place my electric carriage at your service. I thought it probable that you would not have sent to the Palace, and therefore it might save you some slight inconvenience if I were on the spot. If you will honor my poor conveyance--"

"Don't let us delay our business for explanations or compliments, if you please, Chancellor," the Emperor cut him short, brusquely. "I counted on your being here, with your carriage. Now for the hunting lodge in the woods!"

As he spoke, his eyes were on the old man's face, which he hoped to see fall, or change; but there was no visible sign of discomfiture, and von Breitstein made no attempt to excuse himself from making the proposed visit. Evidently nothing had happened during the hours since the message by telephone, to change the Chancellor's mind.

"Yes, your Majesty," came the prompt response. "Now for the hunting lodge in the woods. I am ready to go with you there--as I always have been, and always shall be ready to serve you when I am needed."

It was on Leopold's tongue to say, that it would be well if his Chancellor's readiness could be confined to those occasions when it was needed; but he shut his lips upon the words, and walked by the old man's side in frozen silence.

The carriage was waiting just outside the station, and the moment the two men were seated, the chauffeur started, noiselessly and swiftly.

Both windows were closed, to keep out the chill of the night air, but soon Leopold impatiently lowered one, forgetting the Chancellor's old-fas.h.i.+oned hatred of draughts, and stared into the night. Already they were approaching the outskirts of the great town, and flying past the dark warehouses and factories of the neighborhood, they sped toward the open country.

The weather, still warm the evening before--that evening of moonlight, not to be forgotten--had turned cold with morning; and to-night there was a pungent scent of dying leaves in the air. It smote Leopold in the face, with the wind of motion, and it seemed to him the essential perfume of sadness. Never again would he inhale that fragrance of the falling year without recalling this hour.

He was half mad with impatience to reach the end of the journey, and confound the Chancellor once for all; yet, as the swift electric carriage spun smoothly along the white road, and landmark after landmark vanished behind tree-branches laced with stars, something within him, would at last have stayed the flying moments, had that been possible. He burned to ask questions of von Breitstein, yet would have died rather than utter them.

It was a relief to the Emperor, when, after a long silence, his companion spoke,--though a relief which carried with it a p.r.i.c.k of resentment. Even the Chancellor had no right to speak first, without permission from his sovereign.

"Forgive me, your Majesty," the old man said. "Your anger is hard to bear; yet I bear it uncomplainingly because of my confidence that the reward is not far off. I look for it no further in the future than to-night."

"I, too, believe that you won't miss your reward!" returned the Emperor sharply.

"I shall have it, I am sure, not only in your Majesty's forgiveness, but in your thanks."

"I'll forgive you when you've asked my pardon for your suspicions, and when you've found Miss Mowbray for me."

"I have already found her, and am taking you to her now."