Kitabı oku: «The Adventure of Princess Sylvia», sayfa 5

CHAPTER VII
TEN MINUTES' GRACE

NOT a window of the fourteenth-century yellow marble palace, in its famous "garden of the nine fountains," that was not ablaze with light, glittering against a far, dark back ground of snow-capped mountains. From afar, the crowd who might not pass the carved lions or the statuesque sentinels at the gates, stared, and pointed, and exclaimed, without jealousy of their betters. "Unser Max" was giving a ball; it was for them to watch the glittering line of state coaches and neat closed carriages that passed in and out – striving for a peep at the faces, the grand uniforms and the jewelled dresses, commenting, laughing, wondering what there would be for supper and with whom the Emperor would dance.

"There she is – there's the beautiful young lady who saved him! Isn't she like an angel?" cried a girl in the throng. Up went a hearty cheer, and the police had to keep back the good-natured flock that would have stopped the horses and pressed forward for a long look into a plain dark green brougham. Sylvia shrank out of sight against the cushions, blushing and breathing quickly, as she pressed her mother's hand.

"Dear people – dear, kind people," she thought. "I love them for loving him."

She had chosen to wear the white dress, though up to the last minute her mother had hesitated between the rival merits of seed pearls and gold spangles; and her beautiful face was as white as her gown, as the two ladies passed between bowing lackeys into the palace, through the great marble hall, on through the Rittersaal, to the throne-room, where the Emperor's guests awaited his coming.

It was etiquette for no one to arrive later than ten o'clock; and five minutes after that hour, Baron von Lynar, in his official capacity as Grand Master of Ceremonies, struck the floor thrice with his ivory gold-knobbed wand. This signified the approach of the Court from the Imperial dinner party, and Maximilian entered, with a singularly plain Russian Royal Highness on his arm.

Until the moment of his arrival the lovely stranger (admitted here by virtue of her service to the Emperor) had held all eyes: and even when he appeared she was not forgotten. Every one wished to see how she would be greeted by a grateful monarch.

The instant that his proud head – towering above most others – was seen in the throne-room, it was observed, even by the unobservant, that never had Maximilian been so handsome. His was a face notable for strength and intellect rather than any conventional beauty of feature; but to-night the stern lines that sometimes marred his forehead were smoothed away. He looked young, almost boyish; there was an eager light in his dark eyes, and he gave the impression of a man who had suddenly found a new interest in life.

He danced the first dance with the Russian Royalty, who was the most important guest of the evening, and, still rigidly adhering to the line of duty (which obtains in Court ballrooms as on battlefields), the second, third, and fourth dances were for Maximilian penances rather than pleasures. But for the fifth – a waltz – he bowed low before Sylvia.

Not a movement, scarcely a smile or a glance of hers that he had not seen, since his eyes first sought and found her, on the moment of his entrance. He had noted how well Baron von Lynar carried out his instructions regarding Miss de Courcy; he knew the partners who were presented to her for each dance, and to save his life or a national crisis he could not have worn the same expression in asking the Russian for a waltz as that which brightened his face in approaching Sylvia.

"Who is that girl?" inquired Count von Markstein in his usual gruff manner, as the arm of Maximilian circled the slim waist and the eyes of Maximilian rested on a radiant countenance upturned to his.

It was of Baroness von Lynar that the Chancellor asked his question, and she fluttered a diamond-spangled fan to hide smiling lips, as she answered, "What, Chancellor – are you in jest, or do you really not know?"

Count von Markstein turned his cold eyes from the two figures, so close together, moving rhythmically as poetry – to the face of the middle-aged beauty. Once he had admired her as much as it was in his nature to admire any woman; but that day was long past, and now such power as she had left over him was merely to excite a feeling of irritation.

"I do not often jest," he answered slowly.

"Ah, we all know that truly great men have seldom a sense of humour," purred the Baroness, who was by birth an Austrian, and loved laughter better than anything else in the word – except her vanishing beauty. "I should have remembered, and not tried your patience. 'That girl,' as you somewhat brusquely call her, is the English Miss de Courcy, whose mother has come to Salzbrück armed with such sheaves of introductions to us all. And she it is who yesterday saved the most valued life in the Empire. They are staying at the Hohenburgerhof; I thought you must have known."

"I did not see the young lady's face yesterday," returned the Chancellor, whose indifference to women and merciless justice to both sexes alike had early earned him the sobriquet of "Iron Heart." "As for what this girl did, if it had not been she who intervened, it would have been another. It was merely by a chance that her arm struck up the weapon first."

"Do you not think, then, that His Majesty does right to single her out for so much honour?" Baroness von Lynar's eyes were on the dancers, yet that mysterious skill which some women have, enabled her to see the slightest change of expression on the Chancellor's square, lined countenance.

"His Majesty could not do otherwise," he replied. "An invitation to a ball; a dance or two; a call to pay his respects; a gentleman could not be less gracious. And His Majesty is a most chivalrous gentleman."

"He has had good training." This with a smile and the dainty ghost of a bow to the man who had been as a second father to Maximilian, when his own father had died. "But – we are old friends, Chancellor" (it had not been her fault that they were not more, in the days before she was Baroness von Lynar); "do you really think it will end with an invitation, a dance, and a call? Look at the girl's face, and tell me that?"

Old "Iron Heart" frowned and glared, and wondered what he had seen twenty years ago to admire in this woman. He would have escaped if he could, but he would not be openly rude to the wife of the Grand Master of Ceremonies; and besides, he was willing perhaps to show the lady that her innuendoes were as the buzzing of a fly about his ears.

"I am half-way between sixty and seventy, and no longer a judge of a woman's attractions," he retorted. "Even were she Helen herself, the invitation, the dance, and the call – with the present of some jewelled souvenir, perhaps – are all that are permissible in the circumstances."

"What circumstances?" was the innocent, questioning reply.

"The young lady is not of Royal blood. And His Majesty – thank God – is not a roué."

"But he has a heart, and he has eyes. He may never have used them before. Yet there must always be a first time; and the higher and more strongly built the tower, the greater the fall thereof."

"Need we discuss improbabilities, Baroness von Lynar? Neither you nor I is the Emperor's keeper."

"We are his friends – his most intimate friends. And you and I have known each other for twenty years. It amuses me to discuss what you call 'improbabilities'. Come – for once, humour me, Chancellor. Not for the world would I hint that His Majesty is less than an example to all men, in honour: nor would I suggest that Miss de Courcy could be tempted to indiscretion. But yet I'd be ready to wager – the Emperor being human and the girl the most dazzling of beauties – that an acquaintance so romantically begun will not end with a ball and a call!"

"What could there possibly be more, madam – in honour?"

The Chancellor's voice shook with stifled anger, and he looked – so thought his quondam friend – with his square face, his wide nostrils, and his prominent eyes – delightfully like a baited bull. The Baroness von Lynar was thoroughly enjoying herself. She well knew the old man's desire for the Emperor's marriage, and, though she was not in the secret of his plans, would have felt little surprise at learning that an eligible Empress had already been selected. What fun it was to ruffle the temper of the surly old bear! How much more fun it would be genuinely to alarm him for the success of his schemes!

"What could there be more?" she echoed. "Why, they will see much of each other. There will be many dances, many calls – in a word, a serial romance instead of a short story. Why should His Majesty not know the pleasure of a pure platonic friendship with a beautiful young woman?"

"Because Plato is out of fashion, and, as I have said, the Emperor is a man of honour," growled the Chancellor. "Even if – which I doubt – a woman could deeply influence his life – "

"You doubt that? Then you don't know the Emperor!"

"If it were so, when he felt the danger he would keep aloof for the woman's sake. You tell me this English miss is at a hotel in Salzbrück. What would be said of her if Maximilian continually visited her there? To meet her incognito would be an insult. For the Emperor of Rhaetia to call upon a young woman day after day at the Hohenburgerhof would bring a storm of scandal about her ears. That would be but poor reward for the woman who saved his life."

Baroness von Lynar flushed faintly, under the delicate apology of her rouge. For the fraction of a second she looked rather blank, for she had insisted upon the argument, and it was going against her. She had not stopped to view the question from every side, in her haste to annoy the Chancellor. So far she had only vexed him, She owed him a great deal more than a petty stab of vexation – a debt which during twenty years, she had been repaying in small instalments. If she could prove her point now – or rather, if Maximilian would prove it for her, and she could wipe the slate clean once and forever from the obligations of revenge, it would be something to live for. Yet how was that to be done, since Count von Markstein was in the right about his Imperial master?

But the wife of the Grand Master of Ceremonies was a woman of resource. The cloud on her still handsome face gradually lifted, and she beamed more brightly than before. The little pin-point prick she had inflicted need not be an anti-climax after all.

"Dear Chancellor, how well you know His Majesty!" she ejaculated. "If – being but a young man, and a hot-blooded one, despite his high principles and his former indifference to women – he should not stop to count the cost for himself, you would no doubt take advantage of your warm friendship to remind him?"

"I should indeed do so," said the Chancellor grimly, "were there the slightest chance of such necessity arising."

"It is but a piece with your well-known integrity and courage. What a comfort, therefore, that the necessity is unlikely to arise!"

The old man stared her in the face. "I must have misunderstood you," he sneered. "I thought, in your opinion, the opposite conclusion was foregone?"

"But" (and the Baroness smiled her most charming smile) "suppose that Lady de Courcy and her daughter were not remaining at the hotel?"

The Chancellor's cold eyes brightened – for, in reality, she had given him an uneasy moment. "Ah – then they are going away?"

"I hear," returned Baroness von Lynar slowly, pleasantly, and distinctly, "that they have been asked to the country to visit one of His Majesty's oldest and most intimate friends."

* * * * * * * * * *

Maximilian was said not to care for dancing, though he danced well – as it was his pride to excel in everything worth doing. Certainly there was usually a perfunctoriness about his manner in a ballroom, a suggestion of a man on duty in his grave face, his readiness to lead a partner to her seat when a dance was over.

But to-night! The white arm on his – the girlish arm that had been firm as a man's in his defense; the perfume of her hair, and the glamour of the light upon it; the beating of her heart near his as they danced (or did he only fancy that he felt it?); the glory of her eyes, when they were lifted from a wonder-shadow of lashes; the lissom grace of her girlhood, so childlike, so suggestive of spring, contrasting with the voluptuous summer of Rhaetian types of beauty; the rose flush that spread and spread from her cheeks to the Madonna arch of her brows, as he looked, because he could not help looking! To-night was different from any other night, because she was different from any other woman; Maximilian fancied that an accident had befallen the musicians when the music for that waltz came suddenly, as it seemed, to an end.

At the Rhaetian Court there was always a stately interval of ten minutes after each dance. But what are ten minutes to a man who has things to say which could not be said in ten hours?

They had hardly spoken yet – since the day on the mountain; and, at this moment, each was wondering whether or no the memory of that day should be ignored. Maximilian did not intend to speak of it; Sylvia did not intend to speak of it. But, then, how few matters turn out as people plan!

Next to the throne-room was the ballroom; and beyond was another called the "Waldsaal." Maximilian had had this fitted up for his own pleasure; and it was named the "Waldsaal" because it represented a forest. Walls and ceiling were skilfully covered with thickly growing creepers, trained over invisible wires, through which peeped stars of electric light, like the chequers of sunshine that stray between netted branches. There were realistic grottoes of dark rock, growing trees planted in huge boxes hidden by ivy; while here and there, out of shadowed corners, glared the glassy eyes of birds and animals – eagles, bears, stags, and chamois – that the Emperor had shot. This room, so vast as to appear empty when dozens of people wandered under its trees and among its rock grottoes, was thrown open to the dancers when ever a ball was given at the palace; and, because of its novel and curious effect, it was more popular than the conservatories and palm-houses. It was here that Maximilian led Sylvia after their waltz; and as she laid her hand upon his arm, an almost overmastering desire seized him to kiss the long white glove, upon the wound she had received for him.

"This is a madness," he said to himself. "It must pass." And aloud, meaning to say some thing else – something courteous and common place, he exclaimed, "Why did you do it?"

Sylvia glanced up at him in surprise.

"I don't understand." And then, in an instant, well-nigh before the words were out, she did understand. She knew that he had not intended to ask the question; but, having spoken, it was characteristic of him to stand by his guns.

"I mean – the thing I shall have to thank you for always," he replied.

If Sylvia had been given time to think, she might have prepared an answer. But given no time, she told only the bald truth. "I couldn't help it."

He looked straight into her eyes. "You couldn't help risking your life to – " He did not finish.

"It was to save – " Her words also died incomplete.

Then it was that he forgot various restrictions of etiquette which an Emperor, in conversing with a commoner – be the commoner man or woman – is not supposed to neglect.

For one thing, his voice grew unsteady, and his tone was eager as that of some ineligible subaltern with the girl of his first love.

"There is something I should like to show you," he said. Opening a button of the military coat, blazing with jewels and orders, he drew out a loop of thin gold chain. At the end dangled some small object that flashed under a star of electric light.

"My ring!" exclaimed Sylvia in a breathless whisper.

Thus perished the Emperor's intention to ignore the day that had been theirs in the past.

"Your ring. You gave it to Max; he has kept it. He will always keep it. Are you surprised?"

Sylvia wished to say "Yes," but instead she answered "No," because pretty fibs require preparation; it is only the truth that speaks itself.

"You are not? Then – you guessed, yesterday?"

"I knew – at Heiligengelt. But I wish I need not tell you."

Silence between them for a moment, while Maximilian digested her answer, slowly realizing what it meant. He remembered the bread and ham; the cow, and the rücksacks; he remembered everything and laughed out, boyishly.

"You knew, at Heiligengelt! But not on the mountain when – "

"Yes, I knew even then. It was only a chance – the same adventure might have happened to hundreds of people without their guessing. But I had happened to hear that you went there sometimes, and I had seen many of your pictures – so, when I met a man, I – oh, I wish you had not asked me!"

"Why?"

"Because – one might have to be afraid of an Emperor if he were angry."

"Do I look angry?"

Their eyes met, and dwelt, laughing at first, then probing unexpected depths which drove away all thought of laughter. Something that seemed alive and independent of control leaped in Maximilian's breast. He shut his lips tightly. Both forgot that a question had been asked, though it was Sylvia who spoke first since it is easier for a woman than for a man to hide feeling behind conventionality.

"I wonder you kept the ring – after all my rudeness."

"I had a special reason for keeping the ring,"

"Will you tell it me?"

"You are quick at forming conclusions, Miss de Courcy. Can't you guess? – "

"To remind you never to help strange young women on mountains?"

"No – not for that."

"I am not to ask the reason?"

"On that day you asked what you chose. All the more should you do so now, since there is nothing I could refuse you."

"Not the half of your kingdom – like the Royal men in fairy stories?"

The light words struck a chord they had not aimed to touch. They went echoing on and on, till they reached that inner part of himself which the Emperor knew least – his heart. Half his kingdom? Yes, he would give it to her, if he could. Heavens! what such a partnership would be!

"Ask anything you will," he said, as a man speaks in a dream.

"Then tell me – why you kept the ring?"

"Because the only woman I ever cared – to make my friend, took it from her finger and gave it to me."

"Now the Emperor is pleased to pay compliments."

"You don't think that, really? You know I am sincere."

"But you had only seen me for an hour. Instead of meriting your friendship, I had, on the contrary – "

"For one hour? How long ago is that hour? A week or so, I suppose – as time counts. But then came yesterday, and the thing you did for me. Now I have known you always."

"If you had, perhaps you would not want me for your friend."

"I do want you."

The words would come. It was true – already true. He did want her. But not only as a friend. His world, a world without women or passion ardent enough to eclipse principles, was upside down.

It was well that the ten minutes' grace between dances was over, the music for the next about to begin. A young officer, Count von Markstein's half-brother, who was to be Sylvia's partner, came toward her, then stepped back, seeing that she was with the Emperor. But Maximilian permitted his approach, with a gesture.

"Good-bye," said Sylvia, while her words could still only be heard by the ears for which they were intended.

"Not good-bye – we are to be friends."

"Yes, in heart. But – we shall not often meet."

"Are you going from Salzbrück soon, then?"

"Perhaps."

"I must see you. I will see you —once more, whatever comes!"

"Yes. Once more, but – "

"After that – "

"Who knows – Captain von Markstein – Yes, it is our dance."

* * * * * * * * * *

"Once more – once more!" The words lingered in Sylvia's ears. She heard them through everything, as one hears the undertone of a mountain torrent, though a brass band brays out some martial air to drown its music.

Once more he would see her. She could guess why it might be only once, even if he would fain have had it more. This game of hers, begun with such a light heart, was more difficult to play than she had dreamed. If she could but be sure he cared; if he would tell her this, in words, the rest might be easy; though, even so, she did not quite see how the end should come. Yet how, in honour, could he tell her that he cared? While, if he told her in any other way, how could she bear her life? "Once more!" What would happen in that once more? Surely nothing but a repetition of grateful thanks and courteous words, equivalent to farewell.

To be sure, Miss de Courcy and her mother might go away, and the negotiations between the Emperor's advisers and the Grand Duchess of Eltzburg-Neuwald for her daughter's hand could be allowed to continue, as if no outside influence had ruffled the peaceful current of events. Then, in the end, a surprise would come for Maximilian; wilful Princess Sylvia would have had her little romance, and all might be said to end well. But something within Sylvia's fast-beating heart refused to be satisfied with so comparatively tame a last chapter, a finis so obvious. She had tasted a sweet, stimulating draught – she who had been brought carefully up on milk and water – and she was loth to put the cup down, still half-full and sparkling.

"Once more!" If only that once could be magnified into many times; if she could have her chance – her "fling," like other girls!

So she was thinking in the carriage, by her mother's side, driving back to the Hohenburgerhof from the palace; and the Grand Duchess was forced to speak twice before her daughter became aware that silence had been broken.

"I forgot to tell you something, Sylvia."

"Ye-es, mother?"

"Your great success has made me absentminded, child. You looked like a shining white lily among all those handsome, overblown Rhaetian women."

"Thank you, dear. Was that what you forgot to say?"

"Oh, no! It was this. The Baroness von Lynar has been most kind. She urges us to give up our rooms at the hotel, on the first of the week, and join her house party at Schloss Lynarberg. It is only a few miles out of town. What do you think of the plan?"

"Leave – Salzbrück?"

"She has asked a number of friends – to meet the Emperor."

"Oh! He did not speak of it – when we danced."

"But she has mentioned it to him since, no doubt – before giving me the invitation. Intimate friend of his as she is, she would not dare ask people to meet him, if he had not first sanctioned the suggestion. Still, she can afford to be more or less informal. The Baroness was dancing with the Emperor, I remember now, just before she came to me. They were talking together quite earnestly. I can recall the expression of his face."

"Was it pleased, or – "

"I was wondering what she had said to make him look so happy. Perhaps – "

"W-What answer did you give Baroness von Lynar?"

"I told her – I thought you wouldn't mind-I told her that we would go."