Part 44 (1/2)

Madeline Spencer, lying in a languorous coil among the cus.h.i.+ons in the deep embrasure of an east window, was gazing in dreamy abstraction across the valley to the mountain spur, five miles away as the bird flies, ten as the road runs, where, silhouetted against the blue of the cloudless sky, rose the huge, gray Castle of Dalberg.

For the last hour, she had been training a field gla.s.s on it at short intervals, and presently she levelled it again, and this time she saw what she was waiting for-from the highest tower of the keep the royal standard of Valeria was floating.

For a little while she watched the Golden Lion couchant on its crimson field-las.h.i.+ng its tail in anger with every undulation of the fresh west wind, as though impatient to spring into the valley and ravage and hara.s.s it, much as the fierce first Dalberg himself had doubtless done-then she slowly uncoiled herself, and gliding from the ledge swished lightly across to the far door, that led into the Duke of Lotzen's library.

”Ferdinand,” she said, ”they have--” he was not there, though she had heard him a moment ago singing softly, as was his wont when in particularly good spirits.

She went to his desk and sat down to wait, her eyes straying indifferently over the familiar papers that covered it, until they chanced upon a slender portfolio, she had never before seen, and which, to her surprise, contained only a sheet of blotting paper, about a foot square, folded down the center. Curious, she opened it, to find, on the inside, the stamp of the royal arms, and the marks of a dozen lines of heavy writing, most of it clear and distinct, and made, seemingly, by two impressions, one at each end of the sheet.

What was it doing here?-and why so carefully preserved?-She looked at the writing more attentively-and suddenly one word stood out plain, even if inverted, and under it a date.

Instantly blotter and portfolio were replaced, and she hurried to her boudoir for a mirror. Laying it face upward on the desk, she held the writing over it. A single glance proved her surmise true. Here and there words and letters were missing or were very indistinct, but there could be no doubt that this was the blotter used by King Frederick when he wrote the decree the night before his death. Her hasty reading had found nothing to show the purport of the Law-indeed, it seemed to be only a few lines of the beginning and of the end, including the signature and date-but possibly a closer inspection would reveal more; and so she was about to copy it exactly, when she heard the Duke's voice in the adjoining room and had time only to hide the mirror and to get the blotter to its place until he came in.

His cold face warmed, as it always did for her, and as it never had done for another woman, and he bowed to her in pleasant mockery.

”Good morning, d.u.c.h.ess,” he said; ”what are your orders for the day?-you occupy the seat of authority.”

She got up. ”Having no right to the t.i.tle,” she said, giving him her most winning smile, ”I vacate the seat-do you think I look like a d.u.c.h.ess?”

”Like a d.u.c.h.ess!” he exclaimed, handing her into the chair and leaning over the back, his head close to hers, ”like a d.u.c.h.ess! you are a d.u.c.h.ess in everything but birth.”

”And t.i.tle,” she added, with a bit of a shrug.

He stroked her soft black hair, with easy fingers.

”The t.i.tle will be yours when Ferdinand of Lotzen reigns in Dornlitz,” he said.

She bent back her head and smiled into his eyes. It was the first time he had held out any promise as to her place in event of his becoming king, though she had tried repeatedly to draw him to it.

”Would you do that, dear?” she asked, ”do you really care enough for me to do that-to acknowledge me so before the world?”

”Yes, Madeline, I think I do,” he said, after a pause, that seemed to her perilously long. ”It appears rather retributive that you, who came here, at my instance, to play the wife for the American, should thus have been put, by my own act, into a position where our friends.h.i.+p must be maintained sub rosa. You are quite too clear headed not to appreciate that now, at least, I may not openly parade our relations; to do so would be to end whatever chance I have with the n.o.bles. But once on the Throne and the power firm in my hand, and they all may go to the devil, and a d.u.c.h.ess shall you be-if,”-pinching her cheek-”you will promise to stay away from Paris and the Rue Royale, except when I am with you.”

She wound her lithe arms around his neck, and drew his face close to hers.

”I promise,” she said presently, ”I promise.... But what if you should miss the Crown?-you could not make me d.u.c.h.ess then.”

”Why not, ma belle?” he asked, holding her arms close around his neck. ”I shall still be a Duke, and you-la d.u.c.h.esse de la main gauche.”

She could not suppress the start-though she had played for just such an answer, yet never thinking it would come-and Lotzen felt it, and understood.

”Did that surprise you, little one?” he laughed. ”Well, don't forget, if I miss the Throne, and live, I shan't be urged to stay in Valeria-in fact, whatever urging there is, will likely be the other way.”

”Banished?” she asked.

He nodded. ”Practically that.”

”Paris?”-with a sly smile upward.

He filched a kiss. ”Anywhere you like, my dear; but no one place too long.”