The Adventure of Princess Sylvia Part 24

The carriage was bidden to wait at a little distance from the lodge, and Maximilian, with "Iron Heart" at his side, walked up the path that led to a hooded entrance. They ascended the two or three stone steps, and the Chancellor raised the mailed, clenched fist that did duty as a knocker. Twice he brought it down on the oak panel, and the sound of the metal ringing against wood went echoing away through the house, with an effect of emptiness and desolation.

n.o.body came to answer the summons, and Maximilian smiled in the darkness. He did not believe even that the Prince was there; a practical joke had been played upon the Chancellor.

Again the mailed fist rang on oak. Only the echo replied. Von Markstein was alarmed. He thanked the night, which hid the tell-tale vein beating on his forehead from the keen eyes of the Emperor.

"I begin to think, Von Markstein, that we might as well look for Miss de Courcy in a more likely, and, at the same time, more becoming place," he remarked, with a drawl meant to be aggravating. "There doesn't seem to be any one here; even the caretaker is out courting, perhaps."

"But listen, Your Majesty," said the Chancellor.

Maximilian did listen. Steps could be heard approaching the door inside the house--the sound of a heel on a floor of stone or marble.

CHAPTER XVI

THE OPENING OF A DOOR

IT was a jager who opened the door of the hunting-lodge and gazed at the two men standing in the shadow of the porch, apparently without recognition.

"We wish to see the Prince," said the Chancellor crisply, taking the initiative, as he knew that the Emperor would desire him to do.

"The Prince is not at home, sir," returned the jager.

Maximilian's eyes lightened as he threw a glance of sarcastic meaning at his companion. But "Iron Heart" was undaunted. He knew very well now that this was only a prelude to the comedy, and though he had had a pang of anxiety at first, he thought that his young friend was playing the part allotted him with commendable realism. Naturally, when beautiful actresses came into the country unchaperoned, to dine with fascinating princes, the least such favoured Royalties could do was to issue notice to an intrusive public that they were "not at home."

"You are mistaken," returned the Chancellor "The Prince is at home, and he will receive us. It will be better for you to admit us without further parley."

Under the domination of the eyes which could quell a Reichstag, the jager weakened, as doubtless his master had expected would happen in good time. "If may be that I have made a mistake, sir," he stammered, "though I do not think so. If you will have the kindness to walk in and wait until I can inquire whether the Prince has come home, or when he is likely to come home, I----"

"That is not necessary," said the Chancellor. "The Prince dines here with a lady this evening. We will go with you to the door of the dining-room, and follow your announcement of our presence."

But the jager was no longer uncertain of his duty. The reaction had come, and he faced the invaders boldly. If his master had given instructions only to be overridden, at least the servant was sincere in his respect for them. He put himself in the doorway, and looked a barrier formidable to dislodge.

"That is impossible, sir!" he exclaimed. "I have my orders, which are that His Royal Highness is not at home to-night, and until I find out differently, n.o.body, not if it were the Emperor himself, should force himself in."

"You fool, those orders are not for us; and it is the Emperor who will go in." With a step aside, the Chancellor let the light from a hanging lamp in the hall s.h.i.+ne full upon Maximilian's face, hitherto masked in shadow.

His boast forgotten, the jager uttered an exclamation of dismay, and, with a sudden falling of the knees, he left the doorway free.

"Your Majesty!" he faltered. "I did not see--I could not know! Most humbly I beg Your Majesty's gracious pardon. If Your Majesty will but hold me blameless with His Royal Highness----"

"Never mind yourself, and never mind His Royal Highness," broke in the Chancellor. "Open that door at the end of the hall, and announce the Emperor and Count von Markstein."

The unfortunate jager, well-nigh in a state of collapse, obeyed. The door of the dining-room, which Maximilian knew of old, was flung wide, and a quavering voice made known to whom it might concern the arrival of "His Imperial Majesty the Emperor and the Herr Chancellor von Markstein."

The scene disclosed was as unreal, in Maximilian's eyes, as a painted picture: the walls of Pompeian red, the bronze candelabra, the polished floor, with rugs of creamy fur, and in the centre a flower-decked table glittering with lights, sparkling with silver; springing up from his chair a young man in evening dress, who faced the door; sitting motionless, her back half-turned, a slender girl in satin of bridal white, her uncovered shoulders gleaming with the soft sheen of pearl in the candle-light. This was the stage setting; these the characters discovered.

At sight of the girl Maximilian stopped on the threshold. All the blood in his body seemed rus.h.i.+ng to his head, then surging back again upon his heart. The impossible had happened. His star had fallen from heaven, and the sky was dark.

CHAPTER XVII

THE THIRD COURSE

THE Prince came forward. "What a delightful surprise!" he exclaimed.

"How good of you both to look me up! But I wish my prophetic soul had hinted to me that it would have been well to delay dinner. We have just reached the third course."

His eyes met the Chancellor's, then hid a twinkle under lashes that a professional beauty might have envied. "You must honour me by dining with us," he went on. "All will be ready in a moment, and I keep a man here whose _bisque d'ecrevisse_ is not half bad."

"Thanks," said Maximilian, "we cannot dine. Our visit is purely one of business, and a moment will see it finished. We owe you an explanation for intruding upon you in this manner." He paused; all his calculations were upset by Von Markstein's triumph; deliberately to plan beforehand what he would do if he should find Miss de Courcy in this man's house would have been to insult her. He had merely arranged a campaign in the event of the Chancellor's defeat. Now, the one course which appealed to him was frankness. He did not look at the girl, though he saw her, and her alone, with his eyes coldly fixed upon the Prince. He knew that she had risen, not in haste, as one who is detected and ashamed, but with a leisured and dainty dignity, as if concerned only to respect his rank. Her face was turned toward him now; he felt it--as a blind man may feel the rising of the sun--though still he would not look. No longer ago than last night at this hour they had been together in the garden at Schloss Lynarberg; he had held her in his arms; she had made him think she loved him. She had acted an agony of resentment because he had offered her his heart in his left hand. Now she was here with this b.u.t.terfly who flitted through life in a rose-garden of pretty women. They had been laughing and talking before they were interrupted--these two at the dinner-table.

The champagne gla.s.s beside her plate was half-full. On the plate was fish, with a pink sauce; she had been enjoying her dinner in the Prince's company. Maximilian was not conscious that he had seen and noted all these trifling details which, together, proved her a soulless thing, light and worthless as a piece of thistledown yet each one was like a separate poisoned thorn that rankled in his flesh.

His pause, his search for the words of explanation which he had volunteered was really brief--scarcely so long as to count for a pause at all; yet he had aged in it. He felt that youth and the joy of life had fallen from him like a mantle, since he stepped across the threshold.

"I have spent some hours to-day," he said, "in looking for this lady.

I was told that I should find her in your company. I came, and brought Count von Markstein, to prove to him that he was mistaken. Instead, _my_ mistake has been proved to his satisfaction, since Miss de Courcy is here."

"Miss de Courcy is not here," broke in the girl, speaking for the first time. "I have reason to believe that she is in India."

"I would to heaven that you were with her or anywhere on earth but where you are!" cried the Emperor. He turned to the Prince. "You have my explanation," he said. "It remains only for Count von Markstein and me to bid you and this lady good-night."

The twinkle had died out of the Prince's eyes, and they sparkled with another light. The scene, though planned, had not been rehea.r.s.ed; and the effect upon himself, now that it came to be acted, differed from his expectations. His quick temper, never too fast asleep to wake at the first call, sprang up under the look in Maximilian's eyes.

"You'll not bid her good-night in that manner, if you please," he angrily began, when the girl, catching his arm, cut him short. The familiar way in which she touched the gay young Apollo, resting against his shoulder, sent a red-hot dart of pain through Maximilian's nerves, and he scorned himself for it, because his love ought already to have been uprooted, like a noxious weed.

"Wait, wait!" she cried. "This is my affair, please. You see, the difficulty is that the Emperor doesn't know who I am, and----"

"It is time I told him!" exclaimed the Prince.

"Let the Chancellor do that," said she. "I can see he is dying to. And as he has taken a great deal of trouble, he deserves some reward."

"I have already informed His Imperial Majesty that he would find with the Prince Miss Minnie Brand, an English actress"--the old man bowed, sneering--"justly famous for her talents."

"And His Majesty. What does he say?" The girl's voice sounded anxious now, even wistful. She still stood beside the Prince, but her eyes so appealed to Maximilian's that he could not withhold them, granting her at last a cold and fixed regard.

"I say nothing," he answered. "You have left me nothing to say. You are the Prince's friend. You do not need anything that I can give."

"Yet last night," she cried, "you said you loved me."

"Is this the place to remind me of that?" he demanded fiercely.

"Yes; because I came here hoping that you would follow. I _do_ care for the Prince; I should be very ungrateful if I didn't; but I care far more for _you_."

The boldness of the announcement, its astounding impertinence, coming as it did, when and where it did, was like a smart box upon the ear, literally staggering Maximilian. Sparks danced before his eyes. He opened his lips to answer her with deadly bitterness, but did not speak. With one look, that pent-up all the pa.s.sion of outraged love, and a fury of disappointment that was and must ever be unutterable, he turned upon his heel.

"You would go and leave me here?" exclaimed the girl.

He wheeled round in the doorway. "I am not sure how to address you,"

he said, "since you no longer claim the name by which I have thought of you, nor do I seem any longer to know you. But if there be the slightest doubt in your mind as to your desire to stay here, I--Count von Markstein and--I would gladly place our carriage at your service."