“Burke isn’t gospel.”
“Pardon me. It’s the gospel of the British peerage. It can no more be guilty of error than Euclid.”
“Nor can Miss Mowbray be guilty of wrong. I should still stake my life on that, even had your conclusions not been lame ones.”
The old man accepted this rebuff in silence. But it was not the silence of absolute hopelessness. It was only such a pause as a prize-fighter makes between rounds.
“Your Majesty will not be in too great haste, at all events, I trust,” he said at last. “At least a little reflection, a little patience, to cool the blood. I have not laid down all my cards yet.”
“It’s often bad policy not to lead trumps,” replied Leopold.
“Often, but not always. Time, and the end of the play will show. Is your Majesty’s indulgence for the old man quite exhausted?”
“Not quite, though rather strained, I confess.” Leopold tempered his words with a faint smile.
“Then I have one more important question to ask, venturing to remind you first that I have acted solely in your interest. If such a step as you contemplate should be my death blow, it is because of my love for you, and Rhaetia. Tell me, your Majesty, this one thing. If it were proved to you that the lady you know as Miss Mowbray, was, not only not the person she pretends to be, but in all other respects unworthy of your love – what would you do?”
“You speak of impossibilities.”
“But if they were not impossibilities?”
“In such a case I should do as other men do – spend the rest of life in trying to forget a lost ideal.”
“I thank your Majesty. That is all I ask. I suppose you will continue your journey?”
“Yes, as far as Felgarde, where I hope to find Lady Mowbray and her daughter.”
“Then, your Majesty, when I’ve expressed my gratitude for your forebearance – even though I’ve failed to be convincing – I’ll trouble you no longer.”
The Chancellor rose, painfully, with a reminiscence of gout, and Leopold stared at him in surprise. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“Only that, as I can do no further good here, with your permission, I will get out at the station we are coming into, and go back home again.”
The Emperor realized, what he had not noticed until this moment, that the train was slackening speed as it approached the suburbs of a town. His conversation with the Chancellor had lasted for an hour, and he was far from regretting the prospect of being left in peace. More than once he had come perilously near to losing his temper, forgetting his gratitude and the old man’s years. How much longer he could have held out under a continued strain of provocation, he did not know; so he spoke no word of dissuasion when Count von Breitstein picked up his soft hat and buttoned the gray coat for departure.
“I’ve passed pleasanter hours in your society, I admit,” said Leopold, when the train stopped. “But I can thank you for your motives, if not your maxims; and here’s my hand.”
“It would be most kind of your Majesty to telephone me from Felgarde,” the Chancellor exclaimed, as if on a sudden thought, while they shook hands, “merely to say whether you remain there; or whether you go further; or whether you return at once. I am too fatigued to travel back immediately to Schloss Breitstein, and shall rest for some hours at least, in my house at Kronburg, so a call will find me there.”
“I will do as you ask,” said the Emperor. Again he pressed the Chancellor’s hand, and it was very cold.
CHAPTER XV
THROUGH THE TELEPHONE
When Leopold arrived at Felgarde he went immediately to the hotel which he had designated as a place of meeting. But no ladies answering to the description he gave had been seen there. Either Miss Mowbray had failed to receive his message, or, having received, had chosen to ignore it.
The doubt, harrowing while it lasted, was solved on returning to the railway station, though certainty proved scarcely less tantalizing than uncertainty had been.
The telegram was still in the hands of the station-master, to whose care it had been addressed. This diligent person professed to have sent a man through the Orient Express, from end to end, calling for Miss Helen Mowbray, but calling in vain. He had no theory more plausible to offer than that the lady had not started from Kronburg; or else that she had left the train at Felgarde before her name had been cried. But certainly she would not have had time to go far, if she were a through passenger, for the Orient Express stopped but ten minutes at Felgarde.
It was evident throughout the short conversation that the excellent official was on pins and needles. Struck by the Emperor’s features, which he had so often seen in painting and photograph, it still seemed impossible that the greatest man in Rhaetia could be traveling thus about the country, in ordinary morning dress, and unattended. Sure at one instant that he must be talking with the Emperor, sure the next that he had been deceived by a likeness, the poor fellow struggled against his confusion in a way that would have amused Leopold, in a different mood.
With a manner that essayed the difficult mean between reverence due to Royalty, and common, every-day politeness, good enough for an ordinary gentleman, the station-master volunteered to ascertain whether the ladies described had gone out and given up their tickets. A few minutes of suspense dragged on; then came the news that no such persons had passed.
Here was a stumbling-block. Since Helen Mowbray and her mother had apparently not traveled by the Orient Express, where had they gone on leaving the hotel at Kronburg? Had they after all misled Baroness von Lyndal as to their intentions, for the purpose of blinding the Emperor; or had they simply changed their minds at the last minute, as women may? Could it be possible that they had changed them so completely as to return to Schloss Lyndalberg? Or had they chosen to vanish mysteriously through some back door out of Rhaetia, leaving no trace which even a lover could find?
Leopold could not help recalling the Chancellor’s “revelations,” but dismissed them as soon as they had crept into his brain. No matter where the clue to the tangle might lie, he told himself that it was not in any act of which Helen Mowbray need be ashamed.
He could think of nothing more to do but to go dismally back to Kronburg, and await developments – or rather, to stir them up by every means in his power. This was the course he finally chose; and, just as he was about to act upon his decision, he remembered his carelessly given promise to Count von Breitstein.
There was a telephone in the railway station at Felgarde, and Leopold himself called up the Chancellor at Kronburg.
“My friends are not here. I’m starting for Kronburg as soon as possible, either by the next train, or by special,” he announced, after a far-away squeak had signified Count von Breitstein’s presence at the other end. “I don’t see why you wish to know, but I would not break my promise. That’s all; good-by – Eh? – What was that you said?”
“I have a – curious – piece of – news for you,” came over the wire in the Chancellor’s voice. “It’s – about the – ladies.”
“What is it?” asked Leopold.
“I hinted that I had more information which I could not give you then. But I am in a different position now. You did not find your friends in the Orient Express.”
“No,” said the Emperor.
“They gave out that they were leaving Rhaetia. But they haven’t crossed the frontier.”
“Thanks. That’s exactly what I wanted to know.”
“You remember a certain person whose name can’t be mentioned over the telephone, buying a hunting lodge near the village of Inseleden, in the Buchenwald, last year?”
“Yes. I remember very well. But what has that to do with my friends?”
“The younger lady has gone there without her mother, who remains in Kronburg, with the companion. It seems that the present owner of the hunting lodge has been acquainted with them for some time, though he was ignorant of their masquerade. You see, he knows them only under their real name. The young lady is a singer in comic operas, a Miss Jenny Brett, whose
dossier
can be given you on demand. The owner of the hunting lodge arrived at his place this morning, motored into Kronburg, where the young lady had waited, evidently informed of his coming. She invited him to pay her a visit at her hotel; he accepted, and returned the invitation, which she accepted.”
“You are misinformed. The lady was never an opera singer. And I’m certain she would neither receive the person you mention, nor go to visit him.”
“Will you drive out to the lodge to-night, when you reach Kronburg, and honor the gentleman with an unexpected call?”
“I will, d – n you, but not for the reason you think,” cried the Emperor. It was the first time in his life that he had ever used strong language to the Chancellor.
He dropped the receiver, flung down a gold coin with his own head upon it (at the moment he could have wished that he had no other) and waving away an offer of change, rushed out of the office.
Under his breath he swore again, the strongest oaths which the rich language of his fatherland provided, anathematizing not the beloved woman, maligned, but the man who maligned her.
There would be death in the thought that she could be false to herself, and her confession of love for him; but then, it was unthinkable. Let the whole world reek with foulness; his love must still shine above it, white and remote as the young moon.
This old man – whose life would scarce have been safe if, in his Emperor’s present mood, the two had been together – this old man had a grudge against the one perfect girl on earth. There was no black rag of scandal he would not stoop to pick out of the mud and fly as a flag of battle, soothing his conscience – if he had one – by saying it was for “Rhaetia’s good.”
Telling himself that these things were truths, Leopold hurried away to inquire for the next train back to Kronburg. There would not be another for three hours, he found, and as nothing could have induced him to wait three hours, or even two, he ordered a special. There was a raging tiger in his breast, which would not cease to tear him until he had seen Helen Mowbray, laid his Empire at her feet, received her answer, and through it, punished the Chancellor.
The special, he was told, could be ready in less than an hour. The journey to Kronburg would occupy nearly three more, and it would be close upon nine before he could start with Count von Breitstein, for the hunting lodge which he had promised to visit. But the Chancellor would doubtless have his electric carriage ready for the desired expedition, and they could reach their destination in twenty minutes. This was not too long a time to give up to proving the old man wrong; for to do this, not to find Helen Mowbray, was Leopold’s motive in consenting. She would not be there, and the Emperor was going because she would not. He wanted to witness von Breitstein’s confusion, for humiliation was the bitterest punishment which could possibly be inflicted on the proud and opinionated old man.
CHAPTER XVI
TRUTH ACCORDING TO THE CHANCELLOR
“Tell the truth – when desirable; spice with prevarication – when necessary; and never part with the whole truth at one time, since waste is sinful,” was one of the maxims by which the Chancellor guided his own actions, though he did not give it away for the benefit of others; and he had made the most of that prudent policy to-day.
He had told his Emperor no lies, even through the telephone, where forgetfulness may be pardonable; but he had arranged his truths as skilfully as he arranged his pawns on a chess-board.
It was said by some who pretended to know, that Count von Breitstein had had a Jesuit for a tutor; but be this as it might, it was certain that, when he had a goal to reach, he did not pick his footsteps by the way. A flower here or there was apt to be trodden down, a small life broken, a reputation stained; but what of that when Rhaetia’s standard was to be planted upon the mountain top?
Supposing he had said to the Emperor, after his promise of plain speaking: “Your Majesty’s journey to-day is a wild goose chase. I happen to know that those you seek are still at their hotel in Kronburg. When I heard from my brother Egon that they were leaving Schloss Lyndalberg suddenly and secretly, I went immediately to Kronburg, and called upon the ladies. My intention was to frighten them away, by telling them that the fraud was found out, and they had better disappear decently of their own accord, unless they wished to be assisted over the frontier. They actually dared refuse to see me, alleging as an excuse the sudden illness of their companion, which had prevented their leaving Kronburg as they intended. While I was awaiting this answer, I learned that some person was telegraphing from the railway station to the hotel manager, inquiring if the Mowbrays had gone. I guessed this person to be your Majesty, and ventured to use my influence strongly with the manager, so successfully that I was permitted to dictate the reply, and obtain his promise that the matter should be strictly confidential. I judged that your Majesty had meant to take the Orient Express, but had missed it; and as you telephoned from the station I had no doubt that you intended to follow, either by the next train or by a special. Soon, I learned that no special had been ordered by any one. I ascertained the time of the next train, and sought your Majesty in it. Had my eloquence then prevailed with you, I should have urged your return with me, and thus you would have been spared the useless journey to Felgarde. As you remained obstinately faithful, however, I considered myself fortunate to have you out of the way, so that I could hurry back, and, unhampered by your suspicions, set about learning still more facts to Miss Mowbray’s discredit, or inventing a few if those which undoubtedly existed could not be unearthed in time.”
Supposing that Count von Breitstein’s boasted frankness had led him to make these statements, it is probable that Rhaetia would not long have rejoiced in a Chancellor so wise and so self-sacrificing.
It was well enough for the old man to declare his willingness to retire, if his master desired it; but he had counted (as people who risk all for great ends do count) on not being taken at his word. He loved power, because he had always had it, and without power life would not be worth the living; but it was honestly for the country’s sake, and for Leopold’s sake, rather than his own, that he desired to hold and keep his high position. Without his strong hand to seize the helm, should Leopold’s fail for some careless instant, he conscientiously believed that the ship of state would be lost.
He had done his best to disillusion a young man tricked into love for an adventuress. Now, neither as Chancellor nor friend could he make further open protest, unless favored by fate with some striking new development. There were, nevertheless, other ways of working; and he had but taken the first step toward interference. He meant, since worst had come to worst, to go on relentlessly; and he would hardly have considered it criminal to destroy a woman of the type to which he assigned Helen Mowbray, provided no means less stringent sufficed to snatch her from the throne of Rhaetia.
There were many plans seething in the Chancellor’s head, and Egon’s help might be necessary. He might even have to go so far as to bribe Egon to kidnap the girl and sacrifice himself by marrying her out of hand, before she had a chance to learn that the Emperor was ready to meet her demands. Egon had been attentive to Miss Mowbray; it might well be believed even by the Emperor, that the young man had been madly enough in love to act upon his own initiative, uninfluenced by his brother.
The Chancellor’s first act on parting with Leopold was to telegraph Captain von Breitstein to meet the train by which he would return to Kronburg; therefore on arriving at the station he was not surprised to see Egon’s handsome face prominent among others less attractive, on the crowded platform.
“Well?” questioned the young man as the old man descended.
“I’m sorry to say it is very far from well. But between us, we shall, I hope, improve matters. You have kept yourself
au courant
with everything that has happened in the camp of the enemy?”
“Yes.”
“Is anything stirring?”
“Say ‘any one,’ and I can answer you more easily. Who do you think has arrived at the hotel?”
“The devil, probably, to complicate matters.”
“I’ve heard him called so; but a good-looking devil, and devilishly pleasant. I met him in his motor, in which he’d driven into town from his new toy, the hunting lodge in – ”
“What! You mean the Prince – ”
“Of Darkness, you’ve just named him.” Egon gave a laugh at his own repartee, but the Chancellor heard neither. His hard face brightened. “That’s well,” said he grimly. “Here we have just the young man to see us through this bad pass, if he’s as good looking as ever, and in his usual mood for mischief. If we can interest him in this affair, he may save me a great deal of trouble, and you a mésalliance.”
“But your wedding present to me – ” began Egon, blankly.
“Don’t distress yourself. Do what you can to assist me, and whatever the end, you shall be my heir, I promise you. Is the Prince at the hotel now?”
“Yes. He had been to call on you at your town house, he stopped his automobile to tell me; and hearing from me that you would be back this evening, he decided to stay all night at the hotel, so that he could have a chat with you after your return, no matter at what hour it might be. I believe he has left a note at your house.”
“I will go to him, and we can then discuss its contents together,” said Count von Breitstein. And the chauffeur who drove his electric carriage was told to go to the Hohenlangenwald Hotel.
The Prince who would, the Chancellor hoped, become the
Deus ex machina
, was engaged in selecting the wines for his dinner, when Count von Breitstein’s card was sent in. He was pleased to say that he would receive his visitor, and (Egon having been sent about his business) the Chancellor was shown into the purple drawing-room of the suite reserved for Royalty.
As he entered, a young man jumped up from an easy chair, scattering sheaves of illustrated papers, and held out both his hands, with a “Welcome, my dear old friend!”
It would have been vain to scour the world in quest of a handsomer young man than this one. Even Egon von Breitstein would have seemed a more good-looking puppet beside him, and the Chancellor rejoiced in the physical perfection of a Prince who might prove a dangerous rival for an absent Emperor.
“This is the best of good fortune!” exclaimed Count von Breitstein. “Egon told me you were here, and without waiting to get the note he said you had left for me, I came to you, straight from the railway station.”
“Splendid! And now you must dine with me. It was that I asked of you in my note. Dinner early; a serious talk; and an antidote for solemnity in a visit to the Leopoldhalle to see Mademoiselle Felice from the
Folies Bergère
do her famous Fire and Fountain dance. A box; curtains half drawn; no one need know that the Chancellor helps his young friend amuse himself.”
“I thank your Royal Highness for the honor you suggest, and nothing could give me greater pleasure, if I had not a suggestion to venture in place of yours, which I believe may suit you better. I think I know of what you wish to talk with me, and I desire the same, while the business I have most at heart – ”
“Ah, your business is my business, then?”
“I hope you may so consider it. In any case it is business which must be carried through now or never, and is of life and death importance to those whom it concerns. How it’s to be done, or whether done at all, may depend on you, if you consent to interest yourself; and it could not be in more competent hands. If I’d been given my choice of an assistant, out of the whole world, I should have chosen your Royal Highness.”
“This sounds like an adventure.”
“It may be an adventure, and at the same time an act of justice.”
“Good. Although it was not in search of an adventure that I came to you, any more than it was the hope of game which brought me on a sudden impulse to my little hunting lodge, still, I trust I have always the instinct of a sportsman.”
“I am sure of that; and I have the less hesitation in enlisting your good-will, because it happens that your bird and mine can be killed with one shot.”
“Chancellor, you excite my curiosity.”
The old man smiled genially; but under the bristling brows glowed a flame as of the last embers in a dying fire. “Up-stairs,” said he, “is a pretty woman; a beauty. She claims the name of Helen Mowbray, though her right to it is more than disputable. Her love affairs threaten a public scandal.”
“Ah, you are not the first one who has spoken of this pretty lady since I crossed the frontier this morning,” exclaimed the young man, flushing. He paused and bit his lip, before going on, as if he wished to think, or regain self-control. But at last he laughed, not altogether lightly. “So, the lady most talked about for the moment in all Rhaetia, is under the same roof with me.”
“Fortunately, she is close at hand,” said the Chancellor. “To you, more than to any other, I can open my heart in speaking of our great peril. This girl has drawn the Emperor into a fit of moon-madness. It is no more serious than that, and were she out of the way, he would wake as from a dream. But this is the moment of the crisis. He must be saved now, or he is lost forever, and all our hopes with him. Blessed would be the man who brought my poor master to his senses. I have tried and failed. But you could do it.”
“I?”
“The sword of justice is ready for your hand.”
“That sentence has a solemn ring. I don’t see what you want me to do. But – what sort of woman is this who has bewitched your grave Leopold?”
“Beautiful, and clever, as women are clever; but not clever enough to fight her battle out against you and me.”
The Prince laughed again. “It isn’t my
métier
to fight with women. I prefer to make love to them.”
“Ah, you have said it! That is what I beg your Royal Highness to do.”
“How am I to get at her, when Leopold stands guard – ”
“He will not be on guard for some hours.”
“Ha, ha! You mean me to understand that there’s no time to waste.”
“Not a moment.”
“What is the girl like?”
“Tall and slender, pink and white as a flower, dark-lashed and yellow-haired, like an Austrian beauty. Eyes gray or violet, it would be hard to say which, for a man of my years; but even I can assure you that when the lady looks down, then suddenly up again, under those dark lashes, it’s something to quicken the pulse of any man under sixty.”
“It would quicken mine only to hear your description, if you hadn’t just put a maggot in my head that tickles me to laughter instead of raptures,” said the Prince. “Tell me this; has this girl a tiny black mole just over the left eyebrow – very fetching; – and when she smiles, does her mouth point upward a bit on the right side, like a fairy sign-post showing the way to a small round scar, almost as good as a dimple?”
The Chancellor reflected for a few seconds, and then replied that, unless his eyesight and his memory had deceived him, both these marks were to be met with on Miss Mowbray’s face. He did not add that he had seen her but once, and at the time had not taken interest enough to note details; for it was plain that the Prince had a theory as to the lady’s real identity; and to establish it as a fact might be valuable.
“Is it possible that you’ve already met this dangerous young person?” he asked eagerly.
“Well, I begin to believe it may be so. I’ll explain why later; thereby hangs a confession. At all events, a certain lady exactly answering the description you’ve given, is very likely in this neighborhood; I’ve heard that she was shortly due in Kronburg, and it was in my mind when deciding suddenly to spend a few days in the woods for the sake of seeing you, that I might see her also before I went home again. As a matter of fact, the lady and I have had a misunderstanding, at a rather unfortunate moment, as I’d just imprudently taken her into my confidence concerning – er – some family affairs. If it is she who is masquerading in Rhaetia as Miss Mowbray, and turning your Emperor’s head, it may be that she’s trying to revenge herself on me. She’s pretty enough to beguile St. Anthony, let alone a St. Leopold; and she’s clever enough to have thought out such a scheme. Our small quarrel happened about four weeks ago, and I’ve lost sight of the lady since; she disappeared, expecting probably to be followed; but she wasn’t. The only question is, if she’s playing Miss Mowbray, where did she get the mother? I’ve heard there
is
a Mowbray-mother?”
“There’s a faded Dresden china shepherdess that answers to the name,” said the Chancellor, dryly. “But these mantelpiece ornaments are easily manufactured.”
The Prince was amused. “No, she wouldn’t stick at a mother, if she wanted one,” he chuckled. “And while she was about it, she has apparently annexed a whole family tree. The black mole, and the scar-dimple, you’re sure of them, Chancellor? Because, if you are – ”
“Oh, I am practically certain!”
“Then, the more pieces in the puzzle which I fit together, the more likely does it seem that your Leopold’s Miss Helen Mowbray and my Miss Jenny Brett are one and the same.”
“Miss Jenny Brett?”
“Did you never hear the name?”
“If I have, I’ve forgotten it.”
“Chancellor, you wouldn’t if you were a few years younger. Jenny Brett is the prettiest if not the most talented singer ever sent out from Australia, the fashionable home of singers. She is billed to sing at the Court Theater of Kronburg in a fortnight, her first engagement in Rhaetia.”
“You are right. It may well be that she’s been having a game with us – a game that we can prevent now, thank Heaven, from ending in earnest.”
“Oh, yes, we can prevent that.”
“Your Royal Highness met the lady in your own country?”
“N-o. It was in Paris at first, but I’m afraid I induced her to accept an engagement at home. We were great friends for a while, and really she’s a charming creature. I can’t blame myself. Who would have guessed that she’d turn out so ambitious? By Jove, I can sympathize with Leopold. The girl tried to twist me round her finger, and I verily believe fancied at one time that I would offer her marriage.”
“It must be the same girl. And the Emperor
has
offered her marriage.”
“What? Impossible! But – with the lef