The Adventure of Princess Sylvia Part 12

Otto rose promptly to obey. He was rather thoughtful. His brother had put a completely new idea into his head.

Presently the red volume was discovered and laid open on the desk before the Chancellor, who slowly turned to the required page. As his eye fell upon a long line of De Courcys, his face changed, and the bristling brows drew together in a straight line. At least, these women did not appear to be adventuresses, in the ordinary acceptation of the term.

There they were; his square-tipped finger found and pressed down upon the printed names, with a dig that symbolized its disposition toward their claimants.

"The girl's mother is the widow of Sir Thomas, sixth Baron de Courcy,"

the Chancellor mumbled half-aloud. "Son, Thomas Alfred--um--um--um-- twelve years old; daughter, Gladys Irene Mary Katherine, twenty-eight.

Humph! She's no chicken; she ought to have better sense."

"Twenty-eight!" echoed Otto. "I'll be _hanged_ if she's twenty-eight."

"She doesn't look it?"

"Not a day more than eighteen. Might be younger. I never was so surprised to learn a woman's age. By the way, I heard her telling Von Lynar last night, _a propos_ of our great Rhaetian victory in that month and year, that she was born in June, '79. If so she would now have been twenty-one. It was difficult to believe her even as much.

When she'd spoken, I remember she gave a sudden start and blush, looking across the room at her mother, as though she were frightened.

I suppose she hoped there was no copy of this great red book at Lynarberg."

"That thought might have been in her mind," grunted the Chancellor, "or----" He left his sentence unfinished, and sat, with prominent, unseeing eyes fixed in an owlish stare on the open page of Burke.

"Did you really mean what you said a few minutes ago about my marriage?" Otto ventured to attract his brother's attention. "Because if you did----"

"If I did--what then?"

"I might--try to please you in my choice of a wife."

"Be more explicit. You mean you would endeavour to show this Miss de Courcy that a bird in the hand is worth an Emperor in the bush--a bramble bush at that?"

"Yes, I would do my best. I have--er--some advantages."

"You have. And I was on the point of suggesting that you should make the most of them in her eyes, before--_you brought me this book_." The large forefinger tapped the page of De Courcys, while two grim lines of dogged purpose framed the Chancellor's long-lipped mouth.

"And now you've changed your mind?" There was a distinct note of disappointment in "handsome Otto's" voice.

"I don't say that. I merely say, 'Wait'. Make yourself as indispensable to the lady as you choose; that is, on your own responsibility; 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 is to be done at all, it must be done soon. Meanwhile, the Emperor makes all the running."

The Chancellor looked up, his eyes introspective, his fist still covering the De Courcys.

"You are to wait until I have had answers to a couple of telegrams I shall send to-night."

CHAPTER IX

A WHITE NIGHT

"You meaner beauties of the night,

That poorly satisfy our eyes

More by your number than your light,

You common people of the skies---

What are you when the moon shall rise?"

THE first and second dressing-gongs had sounded at Schloss Lynarberg on the evening of the day after Otto's visit to his brother, and the Grand d.u.c.h.ess was beginning to wonder what detained her daughter, when ringed fingers tapped smartly at the door. "Come in!" she answered the familiar sound, and Sylvia appeared on the threshold, still in the tennis dress she had worn that afternoon. She stood for an instant without speaking, her face so radiantly beautiful that it seemed illumined by a light from within.

It had been on the tip of her mother's tongue to scold the girl for her delay, since to be late was an almost unpardonable offense, with Royalty in the house. But the words died, and others of a different sort came trooping to their place.

"Sylvia, what is it? You look--I hardly know _how_ you look! But something has happened."

The Princess came slowly across the room, smiling with the air of one who walks in sleep. She hardly appeared to see the chair she took, but sat down as if by instinct, then rested her elbows on her knees, her chin nestling between her palms, like a pinky-white rose in its calyx.

"You may go, Josephine," said the Grand d.u.c.h.ess to her maid. "I will ring when I want you again."

The elaborate process of dressing her luxuriant gray hair had just been finished. The rest might wait until curiosity was satisfied.

But Sylvia sat still, dreaming. The Grand d.u.c.h.ess had to speak twice in a raised tone before she could command attention. "My child--have you anything to tell me?"

Sylvia roused herself. "Nothing, mother, Really--except that I am the happiest girl on earth."

"Why--what has he said?"

"Not a word that any one might not have listened to. But I _know_. He _does_ care; and I think he will say something before we part."

"There is only one day more of his visit here, after to-night."

"One whole, long, beautiful day--_together_!"

"But after all, darling," ventured the Grand d.u.c.h.ess, "what do you _expect_? If you were really only Miss de Courcy, marriage between you and the Emperor of Rhaetia would be out of the question. You've never been very communicative on this subject, but I wish I knew exactly what you hope for, what you will consider the--the keystone of the situation?"

"Only for him to tell me that he loves me," Sylvia confessed. "If I am right--if I have brought something new into his life--something which has shown him that he has a heart as well as a head--then there will come a moment when he can keep silent no longer, when he will have to say, 'I love you', and because we can be nothing to each other day is turned into night for me. Then--when that moment comes--the tide of my fortune will be at its flood. I shall tell him that I love him, too-- and--_I shall tell him all the truth_."

"You will tell him who you really are?"

"Yes; and why I have been masquerading. That it was because he had always been the one man on earth for me; because, when our marriage was suggested, I would win his love first as a woman, or I would live single all my days."

"What if he should be angry and refuse to forgive you? You know, dear, we shall be in a curious position, at best, when the truth comes out, having made our acquaintances here under the name of De Courcy. Even Lady West, so dear a friend, so romantic a heart, was uncomfortable about the letters. She only eased her conscience because our real position in the world was much higher than the one we a.s.sumed; therefore, those to whom we were introduced would be but too pleased to know us in our own characters at the end. Yet Maximilian is a _man_, not a romantic woman; he has always borne a reputation for austerity, for being just before he was generous, and it may be that to one of his nature a mad prank like this of yours----"

"You think of him as he _was_, not as he is, if you fancy he would be hard with--a woman he loved," said Sylvia. "He will forgive me, mother; I have no fear of that. To-night, I have no fear of anything.

He loves me--and I am Empress of the world."

"Many women would be satisfied with Rhaetia," was the practical thought in the mind of the Grand d.u.c.h.ess; but she would throw no more cold water upon her daughter's mood of exaltation. She kissed Sylvia on the forehead, breathed a few words of sympathy; and then shook her head, sighing doubtfully, when the girl had gone to her own room to dress.

It sounded poetical, and as easy to arrange as turning a kaleidoscope to form a new combination, while Sylvia talked; but, when her happy face and brilliant eyes no longer illumined the situation, the way seemed dark. To be sure, Sylvia had so far walked triumphantly along the high road to success; but it was not always a good beginning which made a good ending, as the old Duke of Northminster had been wont to observe; and now the Grand d.u.c.h.ess of Eltzburg-Neuwald felt that her nerves must remain at high tension until matters were definitely settled, for better or for worse.

Sylvia had never in her life been lovelier than she was that night at dinner, and Otto von Markstein's admiration for her beauty had in it a new ingredient, which added a fascinating spice. He had regarded her until yesterday as a penniless connoisseur regards a masterpiece of statuary which it is impossible that he should dream of possessing.

What we know is not for us, we are scarcely conscious of desiring; but the moment an element of hope enters in, we behold the object from a more personal point of view.