Part 25 (2/2)
”I want no explanation,” Maximilian answered. ”I want only you.”
”I won't try to tell you how it all began--not now. But my ears tingle still with some words which my actions gave you the right to speak,”
she urged. ”Last night I wanted to go into a convent, and, above all things, I wished to get away from Rhaetia. We were forced to wait, because of Miss M'Pherson's illness. When Count von Markstein called, we excused ourselves. But when Fritz's card came up, it was different.
We couldn't guess whether or not he really knew who we were. His face of surprise showed us he _didn't_. At first he was going to be secretive; but Fritz isn't good at fibs, unless he's had time to prepare them; and a plot he'd just been concocting with the Chancellor all came out. The truth was, he'd taken me for an actress with whom I'm afraid he'd been flirting in Abruzzia. It seems he'd informed her that there might one day be something between his sister and the Emperor of Rhaetia; she knew, too, that the real De Courcys were Fritz's cousins, for she'd met them when acting in Calcutta.
Altogether, for these and other reasons, he fancied I might be Miss Brand, seeking revenge for a slight by humiliating his sister. Imagine how he felt when he saw _me_! And here's the point where Count von Markstein turned into my guardian angel, instead of driving me from Eden with a flaming sword. He'd told Fritz that you were searching for Mary de Courcy to _ask her to be the Empress_. At this, from being the most miserable, I became the happiest girl on earth. I forgave Fritz, he forgave me, and--I at last induced him to let the plot be carried out to the end. I hadn't doubted what that end would be till you came into this room and I saw the look in your eyes. It was like a dagger of ice in my heart. Tell me you forgive me for everything. Tell me that, if I'd been different, and content with conventionalities, you would not have loved me more.”
He took her in his arms, and held her as if he would never let her go.
”If you had been different, I would not have loved you at all,” he said. ”Yet if things had been different, I could not have helped but love you, just the same. I should have been bound to fall in love with Princess Sylvia of Eltzburg-Neuwald at first sight, as I fell in love with Mary de Courcy.”
”Ah, but at best you would have fallen in love with Sylvia because it was your duty. And you fell in love with Mary because it was your duty not to. Which makes it so much better.”
”It was no question of duty, but of fate,” the Emperor persisted. ”The stars ordained that I should love you.”
”Then I wish”--and Sylvia laughed happily, as she could afford to laugh now--”that the stars had told me last summer. It would have saved me a great deal of trouble. And yet I don't know,” she added more slowly. ”It has been a wonderful adventure. We shall think of it when we are old.”
”We shall never be old, for we love each other,” said the Emperor.
THE END
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