Part 51 (1/2)
”Duke--your humor is beginning to conquer. No doubt you are right in many things, but you do not know the state of my mind. My life is destroyed, the axe is laid at the root, happiness, honor--all are lost.”
”For Heaven's sake, what has happened to thus overwhelm you?” asked the duke, still in the most cheerful mood.
She could not tell him the truth and pleaded some incident at court as an excuse. Then in a few words she told him of the queen's displeasure, the malice of her enemies, her imperilled position.
”And do you take this so tragically?” The prince laughed aloud: ”Pardon me, _chere amie_--but one can't help laughing! A woman like you to despair because a few stiff old court sycophants look askance at you, and the queen does not understand you which, with the dispositions you both have, was precisely what might have been expected. It is too comical! It is entirely my own fault--I ought to have considered it--but I expected you to show more feminine craft and diplomacy. That you disdained to employ the petty arts which render one a _Persona grata_ at court is only an honor to you, and if a few fops presumed to adopt an insolent manner to you, they shall receive a lesson which will teach them that _your_ honor is _mine_! Nay, it ought to amuse you, to feign death awhile and see how the mice will all come out and dance around you to scatter again when the lioness awakes. Do you talk of destroyed happiness and roots to which the axe is laid? Oh, women--women! You can despair over a plaything! For this position at court could never be aught save a toy to you!”
”But to retire thus in shame and disgrace--would _you_ endure it--if it should happen to you? Ought not a woman to be as sensitive concerning her honor as a man?”
”I don't think your honor will suffer, because the restraint of court life does not suit you! Or is it because you do not understand the queen? Why, surely persons are not always sympathetic and avoid one another without any regret; does the fact become so fateful because one of you wears a crown? In that case I beg you to remember that a crown is hovering over your head also--a crown that is ready to descend whenever that head will receive it, and that you will then be in a position to address Her Majesty as 'chere cousine!' You, a Princess von Prankenberg, a Countess Wildenau, fly like a rebuked child at an ungracious glance from the queen and her court into a corner of a church?” He shook his head. ”There must be something else. What is it?
I shall never learn, but you cannot deceive me!”
The countess was greatly disconcerted. She tried to find another plausible pretext for her mood and, like all natures to whom deception is not natural, said precisely what betrayed her: ”I am anxious about the Wildenaus--they are only watching for the moment when they can compromise me unpunished, and if the queen withdraws her favor, they need show me no farther consideration.”
The duke frowned. ”Ah! ah!”--he said slowly, under his breath: ”What do you fear from the Wildenaus, how can they compromise you?”
The countess, startled, kept silence. She saw that she had betrayed herself.
”Madeleine”--he spoke calmly and firmly--”everything must now be clearly understood between us. What connection was there between Wildenau and that mysterious boy? I must know, for I see that that is the quarter whence the danger which you fear is threatening you, and I must know how to avert it--you have just heard that _your_ honor is _mine_.' There was a shade of sternness in his tone, the sternness of an resolve to take this weak, wavering woman under his protection.
”The child”--she faltered, trembling from head to foot--”ah, no--there is nothing more to be feared from him--he is dead!”
”Dead?” asked the duke gently. ”Since when?”
”Since yesterday!” And the proud countess, sobbing uncontrollably, sank upon his breast.
A long silence followed.
The duke pa.s.sed his arm around her and let her weep her fill. ”My poor Madeleine--I understand everything.” An indescribable emotion filled the hearts of both. Not another word was exchanged.
The carriage rolled up to the entrance of the Wildenau palace. Her little cold hands clasped his beseechingly.
”Do not desert me!” she whispered hurriedly.
”Less than ever!” he replied gravely and firmly.
”Her Highness is ill!” he said to the servants who came hurrying out and helped the tottering woman up the steps. She entered the boudoir, where the duke himself removed her cloak. It was a singular sight--the haughty figure in full evening dress, adorned with jewels, in the light of the dawning day--like some beautiful spirit of the night, left behind by her companions who had fled from the first sunbeams, and now stood terrified, vainly striving to conceal herself in darkness. ”Poor wandering sprite, where is the home your tearful eyes are seeking?”
said the prince, overwhelmed by pity as he saw the grief-worn face.
”Yes, Madeleine, you are too beautiful for the broad glare of day. Such visions suit the veil of evening--the magical l.u.s.tre of drawing-rooms!
By day one feels as if the night had been robbed of an elf, who having lost her wings by the morning light was compelled to stay among common mortals.” Carried away by an outburst of feeling, he approached her with open arms. A strange conflict of emotion was seething in her breast. She had longed for him, as for the culture she had despised--she felt that she could not live without him, that without him she could not exorcise the spirits she had conjured up to destroy her, her ear listened with rapture to the expression of love in cultured language, but when he strove to approach her--it seemed as if that unapproachable something which had cried ”Noli me tangere!” had established its throne in her own heart since she had knelt among the beggars early that morning, and now, in spite of herself, cried in its solemn dignity from her lips the ”Noli me tangere” to another.
And, without words, the duke understood it, respected her mute denial, and reverently drew back a step.
”Do you not wish to change your dress, you are utterly exhausted. If it will be a comfort to you to have me stay, I will wait till you have regained your strength. Then I will beg permission to breakfast with you!” he said with his wonted calmness.
”Yes, I thank you!” she answered--with a two-fold meaning, and left the room with a bearing more dignified than the duke had ever seen, as though she had an invisible companion of whom she was proud.