The Princess Virginia

The Grand Duchess’s voice was plaintive, and pried among the girl’s sick nerves, like hot wire.

“What do you mean, dear? I don’t understand,” she said, dully. “I’m so sorry you are ill. If it’s my fault in any way, I – ”

Her mother pointed toward a writing table. “The telegram is there,” she murmured. “It is too distressing – too humiliating.”

Virginia picked up a crumpled telegraph form and began to read the message, which was dated London and written in English. “Some one making inquiries here about the Mowbrays. Beg to advise you to explain all at once, or leave Kronburg, to avoid almost certain complications. Lambert.”

Lady Lambert was the wife of the ex-Ambassador to the Court of Rhaetia from Great Britain.

The Princess finished in silence.

“Isn’t it hideous?” asked the Grand Duchess. “To think that you and I should have deliberately placed ourselves in such a position! We are to run away, like detected adventuresses, unless – unless you are now ready to tell the Emperor all.”

“No,” said Virginia, hopelessly.

“What! Not yet? Oh, my dear, then you must bring matters to a crisis – instantly – to-night even. It’s evident that some enemy – perhaps some jealous person – has been at work behind our backs. It is for you to turn the tables upon him, and there isn’t an hour to waste. From the first, you meant to make some dramatic revelation. Now, the time has come.”

“Ah, I meant – I meant!” echoed Virginia, with a sob breaking the ice in her voice. “Nothing has turned out as I meant. You were right, dear; I was wrong. We ought never to have come to Rhaetia.”

The Grand Duchess grew paler than before. She had been vaguely distressed. Now, she was sharply alarmed. If Virginia admitted that this great adventure should never have been undertaken, then indeed the earth must be quaking under their feet.

“Ought not – to have come?” she repeated, piteously. “What dreadful thing has happened?”

The Princess stood with bent head. “It’s hard to tell,” she said, “harder, almost, than anything I ever had to do. But it must be done. Everything’s at an end, dear.”

“What – you’ve told him, and he has refused to forgive?”

“He knows nothing.”

“For Heaven’s sake, don’t keep me in suspense.”

Virginia’s lips were dry. “He asked me to be his wife,” she said. “Oh, wait – wait! Don’t look happy. You don’t understand, and I didn’t, at first. He had to explain and – he put the thing as little offensively as he could. Oh, Mother, he thinks me only good enough to be his morganatic wife!”

The storm had burst at last, and the Princess fell on her knees by the sofa where, burying her face in her mother’s lap, she sobbed as if parting with her youth.

There had always been mental and temperamental barriers between the Dresden china lady and her daughter; but they loved each other, and never had the girl been so dear to her mother as now. The Grand Duchess thought of the summer day when Virginia had knelt beside her, saying, “We are going to have an adventure, you and I.”

Alas, the adventure was over, and summer and hope were dead. Tears trembled in the mother’s eyes. Poor little Virginia, so young, so inexperienced, and, in spite of her self-will and recklessness, so sweet and loving withal!

“But, dear, but, you are making the worst of things,” the Grand Duchess said soothingly, her hand on the girl’s bright hair. “Why, instead of crying you ought to be smiling, I think. Leopold must love you desperately, or he would never have proposed marriage – even morganatic marriage. Just at first, the idea must have shocked you – knowing who you are. But remember, if you were Miss Mowbray, it would have been a triumph. Many women of high position have married Royalty morganatically, and every one has respected them. You seem to forget that the Emperor knows you only as Helen Mowbray.”

“He ought to have known that Helen Mowbray was not the girl to consent – no, not more easily than Virginia of Baumenburg-Drippe. He should have understood without telling, that to a girl with Anglo-Saxon blood in her veins such an offer would be like a blow over the heart.”

“How should he understand? He is Rhaetian. His point of view – ”

“His point of view to me is terrible. Oh, Mother, it’s useless to argue. Everything is spoiled. Of course if he knew I was Princess Virginia, he would be sorry for what he had proposed, even if he thought I’d brought it on myself. But then, it would be too late. Don’t you understand, I valued his love because it was given to me, not the Princess? If he said, ‘Now I know you, I can offer my right hand instead of my left, to you as my wife,’ that would not be the same thing at all. No, there’s nothing left but to go home; and the Emperor of Rhaetia must be told that Virginia of Baumenburg-Drippe has decided not to marry. That will be our one revenge – but a pitiful one, since he’ll never know that the Princess who refuses his right hand and the Helen Mowbray who wouldn’t take his left, are one and the same. Oh Mother, I did love him so! Let us get out of this hateful house as soon as we can.”

The Grand Duchess knew her daughter, and abandoned hope. “Yes, if you will not forgive him; we must go at once, and save our dignity if we can,” she said. “The telegram will give us our excuse. I told the Baroness I had received bad news, and she asked permission to knock at my door before going to bed, and inquire how I was feeling. She may come at any moment. We must say that the telegram recalls us immediately to England.”

“Listen!” whispered Virginia. “I think there’s some one at the door now.”

Baroness von Lyndal stood aghast on hearing that she was to be deserted early in the morning by the bright, particular star of her house party – after the Emperor. She begged that Lady Mowbray would reconsider; that she would wire to England, instead of going, or at all events that she would wait for one day more, until Leopold’s visit to Schloss Lyndalberg should be over.

In her anxiety, she even failed in tact, when she found arguments useless. “But the Emperor?” she objected. “If you go off early in the morning, before he or any one comes down, what will he think, what will he say at being cheated out of his au revoir?”

The Grand Duchess hesitated; but Virginia answered firmly “I said good-by to him to-night. The Emperor – will understand.”

CHAPTER XIII

THE MAGIC CITRON

Breakfast at Schloss Lyndalberg was an informal meal, under the reign of Mechtilde. Those who were sociably inclined, appeared. Those who loved not their species until the day was older, ate in their rooms.

Leopold had shown himself at the table each morning, however, and set the fashion. And the day after the parting in the garden, he was earlier even than usual. It was easy to be early, as he had not been to bed that night; but he had an extra incentive. He could scarcely wait to see how Helen Mowbray would meet him; whether she would still be cold, or whether sound advice from her mother would have made her kind.

This was his last day at Lyndalberg. By his special request no program of entertainment had been arranged; and before coming down to breakfast Leopold had been turning over in his mind plan after plan for another chance of meeting the girl alone. He had even written a letter, but had torn it up, because he was unable to say on paper what was really in his heart.

Breakfast passed, however, and when she did not appear, Leopold grew restless. He did not ask for her before the others; but when he and the Baroness had strolled out together on the terrace, where white peacocks spread their jeweled tails, the Emperor sought some opportunity of bringing in the name that filled his thoughts.

“I see the red October lilies are opening,” he said. “Miss Mowbray will be interested. She tells me there’s nothing like them in England.”

“Ah, she has gone just too soon!” sighed the Baroness.

The Emperor glanced quickly from the mass of crimson flowers, to his hostess’s face. “Gone?” he repeated.

“Yes,” the Baroness answered. “They must have reached Kronburg before this. You know, they left their companion there. Perhaps your Majesty did not realize that they were leaving here quite so early?”

He turned so white under the brown tan the mountains had given, that the Baroness was alarmed. She had taken Virginia’s words as Virginia had meant her to take them, and therefore supposed that a formal farewell of some sort had been spoken. This impression did not prevent her from guessing that there must have been a misunderstanding, and she was tingling with a lively curiosity which she was obliged carefully to hide.

The romance which had been enacted under her eyes she believed to be largely of her own making; and, not being a bad-hearted woman, she had grown fond of Virginia. She had even had pangs of conscience; and though she could not see the way for a happy ending to the pretty drama, it distressed her that the curtain should go down on sadness.

“I did not know they were going at all,” Leopold answered frankly, willing to sacrifice his pride for the sake of coming quickly at the truth.

“Oh!” exclaimed the Baroness. “I am distressed! Miss Mowbray distinctly said, when I begged that they would wait, ‘the Emperor will understand.’”

“I do understand – now I know they have gone,” he admitted. “But – Miss Mowbray thinks she has some cause of complaint against me, and she’s mistaken. I can’t let such a mistake go uncorrected. You say they must be at Kronburg before this. Are they staying on there?”

“I’m afraid not, your Majesty. They leave Kronburg for England to-day by the Orient Express.”

“Do you happen to remember at what hour the train starts?”

“I believe at twelve.”

Leopold pulled out his watch. It was twenty minutes past eleven. Forty times sixty seconds, and the girl would be gone.

The blood rushed to his face. Barring accidents, he could catch her if he ordered his motor-car, and left at once. But to cut short his visit at Schloss Lyndalberg, would be virtually to take the world into his secret. Let him allege important state business at the capital, if he chose, gossip would still say that the girl had fled, that he had pursued her. The Baroness knew already; others would chatter as if they knew; that was inevitable – if he went.

A month ago (when yielding to inclination meant humbling his pride as Emperor and man), such a question would have answered itself. Now, it answered itself also, the only difference being that the answer was exactly opposite to what it would have been a month earlier.

“Baroness, forgive me,” he said quickly. “I must go. I can’t explain.”

“You need not try,” she answered him, softly.

“Thank you, a hundred times. Make everything as straight for me as you can. Say what you will. I give you carte blanche, for we’re old friends, and I trust you.”

“It’s for me to thank your Majesty. You want your motor-car?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll telephone. Your chauffeur will have it here in six minutes. And your aide-de-camp. Will you – ”

“I don’t want him, thanks. I’d rather go alone.”

Seven minutes later the big white motor-car was at the door which was the private entrance to the Emperor’s suite; and the Emperor was waiting for it, having forgotten all about the sable-lined coat which had been a present from the Czar. If it had been mid-winter, he would have forgotten, just the same; nor would he have known that it was cold.

There was plenty of time now to carry out his plan, which was to catch the Orient Express at the Kronburg station, and present himself to the Mowbrays in the train, later. As to what would happen afterwards, it was beyond planning; but Leopold knew that the girl had loved him; and he hoped that he would have Lady Mowbray on his side.

The only way of reaching Kronburg from Schloss Lyndalberg was by road; there was no railway connection between the two places. But the town and the castle were separated by a short eight miles, and until checked by traffic in the suburbs, the sixty horse-power car could cover a mile in less than two minutes.

Unfortunately, however, police regulations were strict, and of this Leopold could not complain, as he had approved them himself. Once, he was stopped, and would certainly not have been allowed to proceed, had he not revealed himself as the Emperor, the owner of the one unnumbered car in Rhaetia. As it was, he had suffered a delay of five minutes; and just as he was congratulating himself on the goodness of his tires, which had made him no trouble for many weeks, a loud report as of a pistol shot gave warning of a puncture.

But there was not a moment to waste on repairs, Leopold drove on, on the rims, only to acknowledge presently the truth of an old proverb, “the more haste the less speed.”

Delayed by a torn and flapping tire, the car arrived at the big Central Station of Kronburg only five minutes before twelve. Leopold dashed in, careless whether he were recognized or no, and was surprised at the absence of the crowd which usually throngs the platform before the departure of the most important train of the day.

“Is the Orient Express late?” he asked of an inspector to whom he was but a man among other men.

“No, sir. Just on time. Went out five minutes ago.”

“But it isn’t due to start till twelve.”

“Summer time-table, sir. Autumn time-table takes effect to-day, the first of October. Orient Express departure changed to eleven-fifty.”

An unreasoning rage against fate boiled in the Emperor’s breast. He ruled this country, yet everything in it seemed to conspire in a plot to wreck his dearest desires.

For a few seconds he stood speechless, feeling as if he had been dashed against a blank wall, and there were no way of getting round it. Yet the seconds were but few, for Leopold was not a man of slow decisions.

His first step was to inquire the name of the town at which the Orient Express stopped soonest. In three hours, he learnt, it would reach Felgarde, the last station on the Rhaetian side of the frontier.

His first thought on hearing this was to engage a special, and follow; but even in these days there is much red tape entangled with railway regulations in Rhaetia. It soon appeared that it would be quicker to take the next train to Felgarde, which was due to leave in half an hour, and would arrive only an hour later than the Orient Express.

Leopold’s heart was chilled, but he shook off despondency and would not be discouraged. Telephoning to the hotel where the Mowbrays had been stopping, he learned that they had gone. Then he wrote out a telegram: “Miss Helen Mowbray, Traveling from Kronburg to Paris by Orient Express, Care of Station-master at Felgarde. I implore you leave the train at Felgarde and wait for me. Am following in all haste. Will arrive Felgarde one hour after you, and hope to find you at Leopoldhof.” So far the wording was simple. He had signified his intention and expressed his wish, which would have been more than enough to assure the accomplishment of his purpose, had he been dealing with a subject. Unfortunately, however, Helen Mowbray was not a subject, and had exhibited no sign of subjection. It was therefore futile to prophesy whether or no she would choose to grant his request.

Revolving the pros and cons he was forced to conclude that she probably would not grant it – unless he had some new argument to bring forward. Yet what had he to urge that he had not already urged twice over? What could he say at this eleventh hour which would not only induce her to await his coming at Felgarde, but justify him in making a last appeal when he came to explain it in person?

As he stood pen in hand, suddenly he found himself recalling a fairy story which he had never tired of reading in his childhood. Under the disguise of fancy, it was a lesson against vacillation, and he had often said to himself as a boy, that when he grew up, he would not, like the Prince of the story, miss a gift of the gods through weak hesitation.

The pretty legend in his mind had for a hero a young prince who went abroad to seek his fortune, and received from one of the Fates to whom he paid a visit, three magic citrons which he must cut open by the side of a certain fountain. He obeyed his instructions; but when from the first citron sprang an exquisite fairy maiden, demanding a drink of water, the young man lost his presence of mind. While he sat staring, the lovely lady vanished; and with a second experiment it was the same. Only the third citron remained of the Fates’ squandered gifts, and when the Prince cut it in half, the maiden who appeared was so much more beautiful than her sisters, that in adoring wonder he almost lost her as he had lost the others.

“My knife is on the rind of the last citron now,” Leopold said to himself. “Let me not lose the one chance I have left.”

Last night he had believed that there would not be room in a man’s heart for more love than his held for Helen Mowbray; but realizing to the full how great was the danger of losing her, he found that his love had grown beyond reckoning.

He had thought it a sacrifice to suggest a morganatic marriage. Now, a voice seemed to say in his ear, “The price you offered was not enough. Is love worth all to you or not?” And he answered, “It is worth all. I will offer all, yet not count it a sacrifice. That is love, and nothing less is love.”

A white light broke before his eyes, like a meteor bursting, and the voice in his ear spoke words that sent a flame through his veins.

“I will do it,” he said. “Who is there among my people who will dare say ‘no’ to their Emperor’s ‘yes’? I will make a new law. I will be a law unto myself.”

His face, that had been pale, was flushed. He tore up the unfinished telegram, and wrote another, which he signed “Leo, the Chamois Hunter.” Then, when he had handed in the message, and paid, there was but just time to buy his ticket, engage a whole first-class compartment, for himself, and dash into it, before his train was due to start.

As it moved slowly out of the big station, Leopold’s brain rang with the noble music of his great resolve. He could see nothing, think of nothing but that. His arms ached to clasp his love; his lips, cheated last night, already felt her kisses; for she would give them now, and she would give herself. He was treading the past of an Empire under foot, in the hope of a future with her; and every throb of the engine was taking him nearer to the threshold of that future.

But such moments of supreme exaltation come rarely in a lifetime. The heart of man or woman could not beat on for long with such wild music for accompaniment; and so it was that, as the moments passed, the song of the Emperor’s blood fell to a minor key. He thought passionately of Virginia, but he thought of his country as well, and tried to weigh the effect upon others of the thing that he was prepared to do. There was no one on earth whom Leopold of Rhaetia need fear, but there was one to whom he owed much, one whom it would be grievious to offend.

In his father’s day, one man – old even then – had built upon the foundations of a tragic past, a great and prosperous nation. This man had been to Leopold what his father had never been; and without the magic power of inspiring warm affection, had instilled respect and gratitude in the breast of an enthusiastic boy.

“Poor old von Breitstein!” the Emperor sighed; “The country is his idol – the country with all the old traditions. He’ll feel this break sorely. I’d spare him if I could; but I can’t live my life for him – ”

He sighed again, and looked up frowning at a sudden sound which meant intrusion.

Like a spirit called from the deep, there stood the Chancellor at the door between Leopold’s compartment and the one adjoining.

CHAPTER XIV

THE EMPEROR AT BAY

Iron Heart was dressed in the long, double-breasted gray overcoat and the soft gray hat in which all snapshot photographs (no others had ever been taken) showed the Chancellor of Rhaetia.

At sight of the Emperor off came the famous hat, baring the bald dome of the fine old head, fringed with hair of curiously mingled black and white.

“Good day, your Majesty,” he said, with no sign of surprise in his voice or face.

The train rocked, going round a curve, and it was with difficulty that the Chancellor kept his footing; but he stood rigidly erect, supporting himself in the doorway, until the Emperor with more politeness than enthusiasm, invited him to enter and be seated.

“I’m glad you’re well enough to travel, Chancellor,” said Leopold. “We had none too encouraging an account of you from Captain von Breitstein.”

“I travel because you travel, your Majesty,” replied the old man. “It is kind of you to tolerate me here, and I appreciate it.”

Now, they sat facing each other; and the young man, fighting down a sense of guilt – familiar to him in boyish days, when about to be taken to task by the Chancellor – gazed fixedly at the hard, clever face on which the afternoon sun scored the detail of each wrinkle.

“Indeed?” was the Emperor’s only answer.

“Your Majesty, I have served you and your father before you, well, I hope, faithfully, I know. I think you trust me.”

“No man more. But this sounds a portentous preface. Is it possible you imagine it necessary to ‘lead up’ to a subject, if I can please myself by doing you a favor?”

“If I have seemed to lead up to what I wish to say, your Majesty, it is only for the sake of explanation. You are wondering, no doubt, how I knew you would travel to-day, and in this train; also why I have ventured to follow. Your intention I learned by accident.” (The Chancellor did not explain by what diplomacy that “accident” had been brought about.) “Wishing much to talk over with you a pressing matter that should not be delayed, I took this liberty, and seized this opportunity.

“Some men would, in my place, pretend that business of their own had brought them, and that the train had been chosen by chance. But your Majesty knows me as a blunt man, when I serve him not as diplomat, but as friend. I’m not one to work in the dark with those who trust me, and I want your Majesty to know the truth.” (Which perhaps he did, but not the whole truth.)

“You raise my curiosity,” said Leopold.

“Then have I your indulgence to speak frankly, not entirely as a humble subject to his Emperor, but as an old man to a young man?”

“I’d have you speak as a friend,” said Leopold. But a slight constraint hardened his voice, as he prepared himself for something disagreeable.

“I’ve had a letter from the Crown Prince of Hungaria. It has come to his ears that there is a certain reason for your Majesty’s delay in following up the first overtures for an alliance with his family. Malicious tongues have whispered that your Majesty’s attentions are otherwise engaged; and the young Adalbert has addressed me in a friendly way begging that the rumor may be contradicted or confirmed.”

“I’m not sure that negotiations had gone far enough to give him the right to be inquisitive,” returned Leopold, flushing.

The Chancellor spread out his old, veined hands in a gesture of appeal. “I fear,” he said, “that in my anxiety for your Majesty’s welfare and the good of Rhaetia, I may have exceeded my instructions. My one excuse is, that I believed your mind to be definitely made up. I still believe it to be so. I would listen to no one who should try to persuade me of the contrary, and I will write Adalbert – ”

“You must get yourself and me out of the scrape as best you can, since you admit you got us into it,” broke in the Emperor, with an uneasy laugh. “If Princess Virginia of Baumenburg-Drippe is as charming as she is said to be, her difficulty will be in choosing a husband, not in getting one. For once, my dear Chancellor, gossip has told the truth; and I wouldn’t pay the Princess so poor a compliment as to ask for her hand, when I’ve no heart left to give her in exchange for it. There’s some one else – ”

“It is of that some one else I would venture to speak, your Majesty. Gossip has named her. May I?”

“I’ll save you the trouble. For I’m not ashamed that the common fate has overtaken me – common, because every man loves once before he dies; and yet uncommon, because no man ever loved a woman so worthy. Chancellor, there’s no woman in the world like Miss Helen Mowbray, the lady to whom I owe my life.”

“It’s natural you should be grateful, your Majesty, but – ”