The King's Mirror Part 22

"How funny we shall think it soon! When I come back from Paris! No, before then! We shall laugh about it!" She broke into sobs, hiding her face in her hands.

"I shall never laugh about it," I said.

"Shan't you?" she asked, looking up and gazing intently at me. Then she rose and came toward me. "No, I don't think you will. Don't, dear. But I don't think you will. You won't laugh about it, will you? You won't laugh, Caesar?"

I bent low and kissed her hand. I should have broken down had I tried to speak. As I raised my head from her hand, she kissed my brow. Then she wiped her eyes, saying:

"You'll send Max to Paris? You promised me this Emba.s.sy. You shall be good and great and independent, and all you say you mean to be and must be afterward. But you promised me this Emba.s.sy. Well, I ask your promise of you. I ask it for Max."

"You would go away from me?"

"Yes. I want to grow old away from you. I ask the Emba.s.sy for Max."

I stood silent, wretched, undecided. She came near to me again.

"Don't refuse me, dear," she said in a low unsteady voice. "I don't ask much of you; just to let me go, and not to laugh. I shall never ask anything again of you. I have given you so much, and I would have given you anything you asked. Don't refuse me."

"It breaks my heart."

"Poor heart, poor heart!" she whispered softly, with a sad mocking smile. "It will mend, Caesar."

"You--you mean it?"

"With all my heart and soul."

"Then so be it."

She came to me and held out her arms. I clasped her in mine, and we kissed one another. Then both of us sat down again, and there was silence. Only once she spoke.

"How soon shall we go?" she asked.

"In about three weeks or a month, I suppose," I answered.

We were sitting silent when we heard a step on the stairs. "Hark!" she said. "It's Max's step." She rose quickly and turned the lamp lower, then seated herself in shadow. "May I tell him about it now?" she asked.

"Yes--if it must be so."

"Yes, it must." She kissed her hand to me, saying, "Good-bye." The door opened, and Max von Sempach came in. Before he could greet me she began:

"Max, what do you think brings the King here to-day?"

Max professed himself at a loss.

"He's come about you," she said. "We've been talking about you."

"Have you? What about me?" he asked, going up to her. She rose and laid her hand on his arm.

"The King is going to give our side a turn," she said with a marvellous composure and even an appearance of gaiety.

"What?" cried Max. "Are you going to send Wetter to Paris, sire?"

"No," said I. "Not Wetter. He doesn't want it now, and anyhow he's not fit for it."

"He doesn't want it! Oh, but he does!"

"Max, you mustn't contradict the King. But one of our people is to have it. Guess who it is!"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't know who it is if it's not Wetter."

"It's you," she said. "Isn't it, sire?"

"If he likes it," said I. "Do you like it?"

"Like it!" he exclaimed. "Oh, but I can't believe it! Something of the sort has been the dream of my life."

"It is yours if you will have it," said I.

"And the dream of your life will come true," she said. "Fancy that! I didn't know it ever happened." And she glanced at me.

"Yes, the dream of his life shall come true," said I. "You're very fit for it, and I'm very glad to give it to one of your side."

"The King belongs to no party," said she. She paused and added, "And to no person. He stands apart and alone."

I hardly heeded Max's profuse thanks and honest open exultation.

"It's too good to be true," said he.

This has always seemed to me a strange little scene between us three.

The accepted conventions of emotion required that it should raise in me and in her a feeling of remorse; for Max was so honest, so simple, so exclusively given over to grat.i.tude. So far as I recollect, however, I had no such feeling, and I do not think that the Countess differed from me in this respect. I was envious of him, not because he took her with him (for he did not take her love), but simply because he had got something he liked, was very pleased, and in a good temper with the world and himself. The dream of his life, as he declared impetuously, was fulfilled. The dream of ours was shattered. How were we to reproach ourselves on his account? It would have been the Quixotry of conscience.

"I daresay you won't like it so much as you think," said I, with a childish desire to make him a little less comfortable.

"Oh, yes, I shall! And you'll like it, won't you?" He turned to his wife affectionately.

"As if I should let you take it if I didn't like it," she answered, smiling. "Think how I shall show off before all my good countrywomen in Paris!"

"I don't know how to thank your Majesty," said Max.

"I don't want any thanks. I haven't done it for thanks. I thought you the best man."

"No, no," he murmured. "I like to think it's partly friends.h.i.+p for my wife and me. Everybody will say so."

I looked up with a little start.

"I suppose they will," said I.

"Yes, you'll be handsomely abused."