Part 31 (1/2)
Silvano raised his eyes,--clear dark eyes, deep-set and steady in their glance.
”Were I so, I should not be here;” he replied--”But I know how she speaks; I know what she does! and from a purely political point of view I think it unwise to ignore her.”
”What is this anonymous communication you speak of?” asked the Premier, after a pause.
”Oh, it is brief enough,” answered Silvano unfolding a paper, and he read aloud:
”To the Marquis de Lutera, Premier.
”Satisfy yourself that those who meet on Sat.u.r.day night where Lotys speaks, have already decided on your downfall!”
”Oracular!” said the Marquis carelessly;--”To decide is one thing--to fulfil the decision is another! Lotys, whoever she may be, can preach to her heart's content, for all I care! I am rather surprised, Silvano, that a man of your penetration and intelligence should attach any importance to revolutionary meetings, which are always going on more or less in every city under the sun. Why, it was but the other day, the police were sent to disperse a crowd which had gathered round the fanatic, Sergius Thord; only the people had sufficient sense to disperse themselves. A street-preacher or woman ranter is like a cheap-jack or a dispenser of quack medicines;--the mob gathers to such persons out of curiosity, not conviction.”
The secretary made no reply, and went on with other matters awaiting his attention.
At a few minutes before two o'clock the Marquis entered his carriage, and was driven to the palace. There he learned that the King was receiving, more or less unofficially, certain foreign amba.s.sadors and n.o.blemen of repute in the Throne-room. A fine band was playing military music in the great open quadrangle in front of the palace, where pillars of rose-marble, straight as the stems of pine-trees, held up fabulous heraldic griffins, clasping between their paws the country's s.h.i.+eld.
Flags were flying,--fountains flas.h.i.+ng,--gay costumes gleamed here and there,--and the atmosphere was full of brilliancy and gaiety,--yet the Marquis, on his way to the audience-chamber, was rendered uncomfortably aware of one of those mysterious impressions which are sometimes conveyed to us, we know not how, but which tend to prepare us for surprise and disappointment. Some extra fibre of sensitiveness in his nervous organization was acutely touched, for he actually fancied he saw slighting and indifferent looks on the faces of the various flunkeys and retainers who bowed him along the different pa.s.sages, or ushered him up the state stairway, when--as a matter of fact,--all was precisely the same as usual, and it was only his own conscience that gave imaginary hints of change. Arrived at the ante-chamber to the Throne-room, he was surprised to find Prince Humphry there, talking animatedly to the King's physician, Professor Von Glauben. The Prince seemed unusually excited; his face was flushed, and his eyes extraordinarily brilliant, and as he saw the Premier, he came forward, extending his hand, and almost preventing Lutera's profound bow and deferential salutation.
”Have you business with the King, Marquis?” enquired the young man with a light laugh. ”If you have, you must do as I am doing,--wait his Majesty's pleasure!”
The Premier lifted his eyebrows, smiled deprecatingly, and murmuring something about pressure of State affairs, shook hands with Von Glauben, whose countenance, as usual, presented an impenetrable mask to his thoughts.
”It is rather a new experience for me,” continued the Prince, ”to be treated as a kind of pet.i.tioner on the King's favour, and kept in attendance,--but no matter!--novelty is always pleasing! I have been cooling my heels here for more than an hour. Von Glauben, too, has been waiting;--contrary to custom, he has not even been permitted to enquire after his Majesty's health this morning!”
Lutera maintained his former expression of polite surprise, but said nothing. Instinct warned him to be sparing of words lest he should betray his own private anxiety.
The Prince went on carelessly.
”Majesty takes humours like other men, and must, more than other men, I suppose, be humoured! Yet there is to my mind something unnatural in a system which causes several human beings to be dependent on another's caprice!”
”You will not say so, Sir, when you yourself are King,” observed the Marquis.
”Long distant be the day!” returned the Prince. ”Indeed, I hope it may never be! I would rather be the simplest peasant ploughing the fields, and happy in my own way, than suffer the penalties and pains surrounding the possession of a Throne!”
”Only,” put in Von Glauben sententiously, ”you would have to take into consideration, Sir, whether the peasant ploughing the fields is happy in his own way. I have made 'the peasant ploughing the fields' a special form of study,--and I have always found him a remarkably discontented, often ill-fed--and therefore unhealthy individual.”
”We are all discontented, if it comes to that!” said Prince Humphry with a light laugh,--”Except myself! I am perfectly contented!”
”You have reason to be, Sir,” said Lutera, bowing low.
”You are quite right, Marquis!--I have! More reason than perhaps you are aware of!”
His eyes lightened and flashed; he looked unusually handsome, and the Premier's s.h.i.+fty glance rested on him for a moment with a certain curiosity. But he had not been accustomed to pay very much attention to the words or actions of the Heir-Apparent, considering him to be a very 'ordinary' young man, without either the brilliancy or the ambition which should mark him out as worthy of his exalted station. And before any further conversation could take place, Sir Roger de Launay entered the room and announced to the Marquis that the King was ready to receive him. Prince Humphry turning sharply round, faced the equerry.
”I am still to wait?” he enquired, with a slight touch of hauteur.
Sir Roger bowed respectfully.
”Your instant desire to see the King, your father, Sir, was communicated to his Majesty at once,” he replied. ”The present delay is by his Majesty's own orders. I much regret----”