Part 30 (1/2)

”Yes, you are right; he has fallen in love,--so desperately in love that he is incessant in his appeals to the d.u.c.h.ess to intercede with his family and grant him leave to marry.”

”To marry whom?” asked Sir Horace.

”That's the very question which he cannot answer himself; and when pressed for information, can only reply that 'she is an angel.' Now, angels are not always of good family; they have sometimes very humble parents, and very small fortunes.”

”_Helas!_” sighed the diplomatist, pitifully.

”This angel, it would seem, is untraceable. She arrived with her mother, or what is supposed to be her mother, from Corsica; they landed at Spezzia, with an English pa.s.sport, calling them Madame and Mademoiselle Harley. On arriving at Ma.s.sa they took a villa close to the town, and established themselves with all the circ.u.mstance of people well-off as to means. They, however, neither received visits nor made acquaintance with any one. They even so far withdrew themselves from public view that they rarely left their own grounds, and usually took their carriage-airing at night. You are not attending, I see.”

”On the contrary, I am an eager listener; only, it is a story one has heard so often. I never heard of any one preserving the incognito except where disclosure would have revealed a shame.”

”Your Excellency mistakes,” replied she; ”the incognito is sometimes, like a feigned despatch in diplomacy, a means of awakening curiosity.”

”_Ces ruses ne se font plus_, Princess,--they were the fas.h.i.+on in Talleyrand's time; now we are satisfied to mystify by no meaning.”

”If the weapons of the old school are not employed, there is another reason, perhaps,” said she, with a dubious smile.

”That modern arms are too feeble to wield them, you mean,” said he, bowing courteously. ”Ah! it is but too true, Princess;” and he sighed what might mean regret over the fact, or devotion to herself,--perhaps both. At all events, his submission served as a treaty of peace, and she resumed.

”And now, _revenons a nos moutons_,” said she, ”or at least to our lambs. This Wahnsdorf is quite capable of contracting a marriage without any permission, if they appear inclined to thwart him; and the question is, What can be done? The Duke would send these people away out of his territory, only that, if they be English, as their pa.s.sports imply, he knows that there will be no end of trouble with your amiable Government, which is never paternal till some one corrects one of her children.

If Wahnsdorf be sent away, where are they to send him? Besides, in all these cases the creature carries his malady with him, and is sure to marry the first who sympathizes with him. In a word, there were difficulties on all sides, and the d.u.c.h.ess sent me over, in observation, as they say, rather than with any direct plan of extrication.”

”And you went?”

”Yes; I pa.s.sed twenty-four hours. I couldn't stay longer, for I promised the Cardinal Caraffa to be in Rome on the 18th, about those Polish nunneries. As to Ma.s.sa, I gathered little more than I had heard beforehand. I saw their villa; I even penetrated as far as the orangery in my capacity of traveller,--the whole a perfect Paradise. I 'm not sure I did not get a peep at Eve herself,--at a distance, however. I made great efforts to obtain an interview, but all unsuccessfully. The police authorities managed to summon two of the servants to the Podesta, on pretence of some irregularity in their papers, but we obtained nothing out of them; and, what is more, I saw clearly that nothing could be effected by a _coup de main_. The place requires a long siege, and I had not time for that.”

”Did you see Wahnsdorf?”

”Yes; I had him to dinner with me alone at the hotel, for, to avoid all observation, I only went to the Palace after nightfall. He confessed all his sins to me, and, like every other scapegrace, thought marriage was a grand absolution for past wickedness. He told me, too, how he made the acquaintance of these strangers. They were crossing the Magra with their carriage on a raft, when the cable snapped, and they were all carried down the torrent. He happened to be a pa.s.senger at the time, and did something very heroic, I 've no doubt, but I cannot exactly remember what; but it amounted to either being, or being supposed to be, their deliverer. He thus obtained leave to pay his respects at the villa. But even this grat.i.tude was very measured; they only admitted him at rare intervals, and for a very brief visit. In fact, it was plain he had to deal with consummate tacticians, who turned the mystery of their seclusion and the honor vouchsafed him to an ample profit.”

”He told them his name and his rank?”

”Yes; and he owned that they did not seem at all impressed by the revelation. He describes them as very naughty, very condescending in manner, _tres grandes dames_, in fact, but unquestionably born to the cla.s.s they represent. They never dropped a hint of whence they had come, or any circ.u.mstance of their past lives, but seemed entirely engrossed by the present, which they spent princ.i.p.ally in cultivating the arts; they both drew admirably, and the young lady had become a most skilful modellist in clay, her whole day being pa.s.sed in a studio which they had just built. I urged him strongly to try and obtain permission for me to see it, but he a.s.sured me it was hopeless,--the request might even endanger his own position with them.

”I could perceive that, though very much in love, Wahns-dorf was equally taken with the romance of this adventure. He had never been a hero to himself before, and he was perfectly enchanted by the novelty of the sensation. He never affected to say that he had made the least impression on the young lady's heart; but he gave me to understand that the nephew of an Emperor need not trouble his head much on that score.

He is a very good-looking, well-mannered, weak boy, who, if he only reach the age of thirty without some great blunder, will pa.s.s for a very dignified Prince for the rest of his life.”

”Did you give him any hopes?”

”Of course, if he only promised to follow my counsels; and as these same counsels are yet in the oven, he must needs wait for them. In a word, he is to write to me everything, and I to him; and so we parted.”

”I should like to see these people,” said Upton, languidly.

”I'm sure of it,” rejoined she; ”but it is perhaps unnecessary;” and there was that in the tone which made the words very significant.

”Chelmsford--he 's now Secretary at Turin--might perhaps trace them,”

said he; ”he always knows everything of those people who are secrets to the rest of the world.”

”For the present, I am disposed to think it were better not to direct attention towards them,” replied she. ”What we do here must be done adroitly, and in such a way as that it can be disavowed if necessary, or abandoned if unsuccessful.”