Part 66 (1/2)
”I fancy that she will be making somebody very, very unhappy.”
”So do I.”
”Then the fight between us can begin afresh.”
”I think not. I renounce any claim to console the unhappy.”
”Oh, you do not want to make me believe that you are acting without personal feeling.”
”Certainly not. But what will result from this evening's work will be a monster needing two mothers. The one revenge; the other love.”
”And you choose revenge?”
”I give you the second, Princess.”
”I have not yet forgotten the diplomatic saying that two only make a compact together in order that one may deceive the other.”
Meanwhile Prince Ghedimin had come up to conduct his wife to her carriage. Seeing Zeneida, he started.
”Do just see,” exclaimed the Princess, in an affected tone, ”how low-spirited he is! He has grown quite melancholy. For days together I cannot drive him from my side; he will not stir from me. If only he had something to talk about! But all he can do is to knit his brows and ruminate. I do beg of you, Fraulein Ilmarinen, in consideration of our alliance, to do me a favor. You are a perfect enchantress--just say one word to him. I am convinced it will cheer him.”
”Do you really desire it?”
The look Prince Ghedimin cast upon Zeneida expressed both fear and uneasiness. He was ”the chosen dictator.” If Zeneida uttered the words ”I sing,” he must forthwith draw his sword out of its scabbard, exclaiming ”I fight!”
Zeneida attempted the magician's feat of curing the Prince's melancholy with one word.
”The summer has quite left us, Prince, has it not? Winter is upon us.”
A sufficiently commonplace remark! Imagine talking about the weather!
Prince Ghedimin acquiesced.
”And I fear we shall have a very unpleasant winter if we 'too' do not go to the Crimea or the Caucasus to luxuriate in a second summer.”
A very ordinary speech! But that little word ”too” had electrified the Prince. He seemed a changed man. His face brightened, his figure grew elastic; surely a miracle had happened to him!
”Come, my love,” he said to the Princess, and, to her amazement, began humming an air from the overture of the _Czarenwalzers_ as they went down the stairs.
That woman is surely the devil in person! She says the most commonplace nothings, and, doing so, brings a dead man back to life.
And yet the Princess has carefully weighed every word spoken by Zeneida.
Which can have been the magical one? There was none. The little word ”too” had escaped her attention.
And it was from that one word that the Prince knew that the Czarina would go to the Crimea, and with her the Czar. His breast was relieved of a heavy load.
Chevalier Galban escorted the ladies to their carriage, and Bethsaba, leaning out of the carriage-window, looked back at him.
”I have caught her!” thought Chevalier Galban to himself.