Part 18 (1/2)
The old man spread out his hands--the pathetic hands of age--in a deprecatory gesture. ”I fear, in my zeal for Your Majesty's welfare and the welfare of Rhaetia, I somewhat exceeded my instructions,” he confessed. ”My one excuse is, that I believed your mind to be entirely made up. I still believe so. I would listen to no one who told me otherwise. And I will inform Friedrich that----”
”You must even get yourself and me out of the sc.r.a.pe as gracefully as you can, since you admit you got us into it,” broke in the Emperor, sinfully glad of the chance to transfer a fraction of the blame to other shoulders. ”If Princess Sylvia of Eltzburg-Neuwald is as charming as she is said to be, her only difficulty will be to choose a husband, not to get one. For once gossip has told the truth, and I would not pay the Princess so poor a compliment as to ask for her hand when my heart is irrevocably given to another woman.”
”It is of that other I would speak with you also, Your Majesty. Gossip has named her. May I do the same?”
”I will save you the trouble, Chancellor,” retorted Maximilian, ”for I am not ashamed that at last the common fate of all has overtaken me-- common, because they say every man loves once before he dies; yet uncommon, because no man ever loved such a woman. There is no one in the world like Miss de Courcy--the English lady who saved my life on the eve of my birthday, as you know.”
”It is natural that you should feel grateful, Your Majesty.”
”It is natural that I should feel love; impossible that I should not feel it.”
”Natural that being still young and inexperienced in such matters, Your Majesty should mistake grat.i.tude for love; impossible that you should let the mistake continue.”
”If it were a mistake! I am keeping to my bargain, Chancellor, and talking with you man to man, for I know you won't try me too far. In such a connection it would be better not to mention the word 'mistake'. I am glad that you followed me, for I may as well say that I meant you should know my intentions within a few days. You, of course, would have known before any one.”
”Intentions, Your Majesty? I fear I grow old and slow of understanding.”
”For you to be slow of understanding would be a change indeed. I spoke of my intentions toward Miss de Courcy.”
”You would make the lady some handsome present, as an acknowledgment of your indebtedness?”
”Whether handsome or not would be largely a matter of opinion,” said the Emperor, smiling for the first time. ”I am making her a present of myself.”
The old man had sat with his chin sunk into his short neck, peering out from under his brows in a way he had; but he lifted his head suddenly, and there was a look in his eyes like that of an animal who scents danger from an unexpected quarter.
”Your Majesty!” he exclaimed incredulously. ”You are your father's son. You are Rhaetia. Your standard of honour cannot be soiled for a woman's sake.”
”You misunderstand me,” said Maximilian, in haste. ”I speak of marriage.”
The Chancellor's jaw dropped, and the warm mahogany hue of his skin paled to a sickly yellow. For a moment his lips quivered in a vain effort to formulate words, but he fought with his weakness and conquered.
”I had dreamed of nothing as bad as this, Your Majesty,” he blurted out, with no sugaring of the truth this time. ”I had heard the rumour connecting your most august name with that of a stranger from another country. I feared a young man's impulsiveness. I dreaded a scandal.
But forgive me, Your Majesty, this thought of yours is no less than madness. For a man in your position, a morganatic marriage would spell ruin----”
”A morganatic marriage was in my mind, I admit,” the Emperor cut him short once more. ”But I saw the unwisdom, the injustice of that, and decided differently.”
”Praise be to heaven!” devoutly e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the Chancellor, who, in calmer moments, believed himself an atheist.
”I decided that, rather than lose something dearer than life, as dear as honour, I would make this lady--this peerless lady--Empress of Rhaetia,” Maximilian went on.
With a cry the Chancellor sprang up, the veins in his forehead full to bursting. His eyes glared like those of a bull that receives the death-stroke. His working lips and the hollow sound in his throat alarmed the Emperor, who, for a few grim seconds, feared the worst.
But the iron heart of old Eberhard von Markstein was not to be stilled by a single blow.
He muttered a word which the younger man ignored, though it smote his ears sharply. Then, after a silence potent with meaning, and punctuated with a gasp, the Chancellor ”found himself” again.
”No, Your Majesty; no, I say!” he panted.
”But I say yes, and no man shall give me nay. I have thought it all out and I see the path before me,” insisted Maximilian. ”I will make her a countess first; she shall be Countess of Salzbruck. Later, she shall be Empress.”
”Your Majesty, it is impossible.”