Part 1 (2/2)

He shrugged his shoulders. ”You forget, there is a King in Dornlitz!”

”You would go incog. and old Frederick never be the wiser, nor care even if he were.”

He laughed shortly. ”Think you so, ma belle,-well, believe me, I want not to be the one to try him.”

The horn rang out again from the court-yard; the Duke crossed to a window.

”Go on,” he called, ”we will follow presently;” and with a clatter and a shout, they spurred across the bridge and away.

”Who leads?” she asked, going over and drawing herself up on the cas.e.m.e.nt.

He put his arm around her. ”What matters,” he laughed, ”since we are here?” and bent his head to her cheek.

”Let us go to Paris, dear,” she whispered, caressingly; ”to the boulevards and the music, the life, and the color.”

He shook his head. ”You don't know what you ask, little one-once I might have dared it, but not now-no, not now.”

She drew a bit nearer. ”And would the penalty now be so very serious?”

she asked.

He looked at her a while uncertainly; and she smiled back persuasively.

She knew that he was in disfavor because of his plots against the Archduke Armand's honor and life; and that he had been sent hither in disgrace; but all along what had puzzled her was his calm acquiescence; his remaining in this desolation, with never a word of anger toward the King, nor disposition to slip away surrept.i.tiously to haunts beyond the border. Why should he be so careful not to transgress even the spirit of the royal order?-he who had not hesitated to play a false wife against the Archduke Armand, to try a.s.sa.s.sination, and to arrange deliberately to kill him in a duel. She remembered well that evening in her reception room, at the Hotel Metzen in Dornlitz, when Lotzen's whole scheme had suddenly collapsed like a house of cards. She recalled the King's very words of sentence when, at last, he had deigned to notice the Duke. ”The Court has no present need of plotters and will be the better for your absence,” he had said. ”It has been over long since you have visited your t.i.tular estates and they doubtless require your immediate attention. You are, therefore, permitted to depart to them forthwith-and to remain indefinitely.” Surely, it was very general and precluded only a return to Dornlitz.

That the question of the succession was behind it all, she was very well persuaded; the family laws of the Dalbergs were secret, undisclosed to any but the ranking members of the House, but the Crown had always descended by male primogeniture. The advent of Armand, the eldest male descendant of Hugo Dalberg (who had been banished by his father, the Great Henry, when he had gone to America and taken service under Was.h.i.+ngton) had tangled matters, for Armand was senior in line to Lotzen.

It was known that Henry, shortly before his death, had revoked the former decree and restored Hugo and his children to their rank and estates; and Frederick had proclaimed this decree to the Nation and had executed it in favor of Armand, making him an Archduke and Colonel of the Red Huzzars.

But what no one knew was whether Lotzen had hereby been displaced as Heir Presumptive. How far did the Great Henry's decree of restoration extend?

How far had Frederick made it effective? In short, would the next King be Ferdinand, Duke of Lotzen, or Armand, Archduke of Valeria?

And to Madeline Spencer the answer was of deep concern; and she had been manuvering to draw it from the Duke ever since she had come to the Castle. But every time she had led up to it, he had led away, and with evident deliberation. Plainly there was something in the Laws that made it well for him to drive the King no further; and what could it be but the power to remove him as Heir Presumptive.

And as Lotzen knew the answer, she would know it, too. If he were not to be king, she had no notion to entangle herself further with him; he was then too small game for her bow; and there would be a very chill welcome for her in Dornlitz from Queen Dehra. But should he get the Crown-well, there are worse positions than a king's favorite-for a few months-the open-handed months.

So she slipped an arm about his shoulders and let a whisp of perfumed hair flirt across his face.

”Tell me, dear,” she said, ”why won't you go to Paris?”

He laughed and lightly pinched her cheek. ”Because I'm surer of you here.

Paris breeds too many rivals.”

”Yet I left them all to come here,” she answered.

”But now you would go back.”

She smiled up at him. ”Yes, but with you, dear-not alone.” Her hand stole into his. ”Tell me, sweetheart, why you will not go-might it cause Frederick to deprive you of the succession?”

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