THE EMPEROR'S BALL
Not a window of the fourteenth century, yellow marble palace on the
hill, with its famous Garden of the Nine Fountains, that was not
ablaze with light, glittering against a far-away background of violet
mountains crowned by snow.
Outside the tall, bronze gates where marble lions crouched, the crowd
who might not pass beyond stared, chattered, pointed and exclaimed,
without jealousy of their betters. _Unser Leo_ was giving a ball, and
it was enough for their happiness to watch the slow moving line of
splendid state coaches, gorgeous automobiles, and neat broughams with
well-known crests upon their doors; to strive good-naturedly for a
peep at the faces and dresses, the jewels and picturesque uniforms; to
comment upon all freely but never impudently, asking one another what
would be for supper, and with whom the Emperor would dance.
"There she is--there's the beautiful young foreign lady who saved
him!" cried a girl in the throng. "I was there and saw her, I tell
you. Isn't she an angel?"
Instantly a hearty cheer went up, growing in volume, and the
green-coated policemen had to keep back the crowd that would have
stopped the horses and pressed close for a long look into a plain,
dark-blue brougham.
Virginia shrank out of sight against the cushions, blushing, and
breathing quickly as she caught her mother's hand.
"Dear people,--dear, kind people," she thought. "I love them for
loving him. I wonder, oh I wonder, if they will ever see me and cheer
me, driving by his side?"
She had chosen to wear the white dress with the pearls, though up to
the last moment the Grand Duchess had suffered tortures of indecision
between that and the blue, to say nothing of a pink chiffon trimmed
with crushed roses. Before the carriage brought them to the palace
doors, the girl's blush had faded, and her face was as white as her
gown when at her mother's side she passed between bowing lackeys
through the marble Hall of Lions, on through the frescoed Rittersaal
to the throne room where the Emperor's guests awaited his coming.
It was etiquette not to arrive a moment later than ten o'clock; and a
few minutes after the hour Baron von Lyndal, in his official capacity
as Grand Master of Ceremonies, struck the polished floor twice with
his gold-knobbed wand of ivory. This signaled the approach of the
court from the Imperial dinner party, and Leopold entered, with a
stout, middle-aged Royal Highness from Russia on his arm.
Until his arrival the beautiful Miss Mowbray had held all eyes; and
even when he appeared, she was not forgotten. Every one was on tenter
hooks to see how she would be greeted by the grateful Emperor.
The instant that his dark head towered above other heads in the throne
room, it was observed even by those not usually observant, that never
had Leopold been so handsome.
His was a face remarkable for intellect and firmness rather than for
classical beauty of feature, though his features were strong and
clearly cut; but to-night the sternness that sometimes marred them in
the eyes of women was smoothed away. He looked young and ardent,
almost boyish, like a man who has suddenly found an absorbing new
interest in life.
The first dance he went through with the Russian Royalty, who was the
guest of the evening; and, still rigidly conforming to the line of
duty (which obtains in court ball-rooms as on battlefields), the
second, third and fourth dances were for the Emperor penances instead
of pleasures. But for the fifth--a waltz--he bowed before Virginia.
During this long hour there had been hardly a movement, smile or
glance of hers which he had not contrived to see, since his entrance.
He knew just how well Baron von Lyndal carried out his instructions
concerning Miss Mowbray. He saw each partner presented to her for a
dance the Emperor might not claim; and to save his life, or a national
crisis, he could not have forced the same expression in speaking with
her Royal Highness from Russia, as that which spontaneously brightened
his face when at last he approached Virginia.
"Who is that girl?" asked Count von Breitstein, in his usual abrupt
manner, as the arm of Leopold girdled the slim waist of the Princess,
and the eyes of Leopold drank light from another pair of eyes lifted
to his in laughter.
It was to Baroness von Lyndal that the old Chancellor put his
question, and she fluttered a tiny, diamond-spangled fan of lace to
hide lips that would smile, as she answered, "What, Chancellor, are
you jesting, or don't you really know who that girl is?"
Count von Breitstein turned eyes cold and gray as glass away from the
two figures moving rhythmically with the music, to the face of the
once celebrated beauty. Long ago he had admired Baroness von Lyndal as
passionately as it was in him to admire any woman; but that day was so
far distant as to be remembered with scorn, and now, such power as she
had over him was merely to excite a feeling of irritation.
"I seldom trouble myself to jest," he answered.
"Ah, one knows that truly great men are born without a sense of humor;
those who have it are never as successful in life as those without,"
smiled the Baroness, who was by birth a Hungarian, and loved laughter
better than anything else, except compliments upon her vanishing
beauty. "How stupid of me to have tried your patience. 'That girl,' as
you so uncompromisingly call her, has two claims to attention at
court. She is the English Miss Helen Mowbray whose mother has come to
Kronburg armed with sheaves of introductions to us all. She is also
the young woman of whom the papers are full to-day, for it is she who
saved the Emperor's life."
"Indeed," said the Chancellor, a gray gleam in his eye as he watched
the white figure floating on the tide of music, in the arms of
Leopold. "Indeed."
"I thought you would have known, for you know most things before other
people hear of them," went on the Baroness. "Lady Mowbray and her
daughter are stopping at the Hohenlangenwald Hotel. That's the mother
sitting on the left of Princess Neufried,--the pretty, Dresden china
person. But the girl is a great beauty."
"It's generous of you to say so, Baroness," replied the Chancellor. "I
didn't see the young lady's face at all clearly yesterday; I was
stationed too far away; and dress makes a great difference. As for
what she did," went on the old man, whose coldness to women and
merciless justice to both sexes alike had earned him the nickname of
"Iron Heart," "as for what she did, if it had not been she who
intervened between the Emperor and death, it would have been the fate
of another to do so. It was a fortunate thing for the girl, we may
say, that it happened to be her arm which struck up the weapon."
"Or she wouldn't be here to-night, you mean," laughed the Baroness.
"Don't you think, then, that his Majesty is right to single her out
for so much honor?" Her eyes were on the dancers; yet that mysterious
skill which most women of the world have learned, taught her how not
to miss the slightest change of expression, if there were any, on the
Chancellor's square, lined face.
"His Majesty is always right," he replied diplomatically. "An
invitation to a ball; a dance or two; a few compliments; a call to pay
his respects; a gentleman could not be less gracious. And his Majesty
is one of the first gentlemen in Europe."
"He has had good training, what to do and what not to do." The
Baroness flung her little sop of flattery to Cerberus with a dainty
ghost of a bow for the man who had been as a second father to Leopold
since the late Emperor's death. "But--we're old friends, Chancellor,"
(she was not to blame that they had not been more in the days before
she became Baroness von Lyndal), "so tell me; can you look at the
girl's face and the Emperor's, and still say that everything will end
with an invitation, a dance, some compliments, and a call to pay
respects?"
Iron Heart frowned and sneered, wondering what he could have seen,
twenty-two years ago, to admire in this flighty woman. He would have
escaped from her now, if escape had been feasible; but he could not be
openly rude to the wife of the Grand Master of Ceremonies, at the
Emperor's ball. And besides, he was not unwilling, perhaps, to show
the lady that her sentimental and unsuitable innuendos were as the
buzzing of a fly about his ears.
"I'm close upon seventy, and no longer a fair judge of a woman's
attractions," he returned carelessly. "A look at her face conveys
nothing to me. But, were she Helen of Troy instead of Helen Mowbray,
the invitation, the dance, the compliments, and the call--with the
present of some jeweled souvenir--are all that are permissible in the
circumstances."
"What circumstances?" and the Baroness looked as innocent as an
inquiring child.
"The lady is not of Royal blood. And his Majesty, I thank Heaven, is
not a roué."
"He has a heart, though you trained him, Chancellor; and he has eyes.
He may never have used them to much purpose before, yet there must be
a first time. And the higher and more strongly built the tower, once
it begins to topple, the greater is the fall thereof."
"Is it the sense of humor, which you say I lack, that gives you
pleasure in discussing the wildest improbabilities, as if they were
events to be considered seriously? If it is, I'm not sorry to lack it.
In any case, it's as well that neither you nor I is the Emperor's
keeper."
"We're at least his very good friends, I as well as you, in my humbler
way, Chancellor. And you and I have known each other for twenty-two
years. If it amuses me to discuss improbabilities, why not? Since you
call them improbabilities, it can do no harm to dwell upon them as
ingredients for romance. Not for worlds would I suggest that his
Majesty isn't an example for all men to follow, nor that poor, pretty
Miss Mowbray could be tempted to indiscretion. But yet I'd be ready to
make a wager--the Emperor being human, and the girl a beauty--that an
acquaintance so romantically begun won't end with a ball and a call."
"What could there possibly be more--or what you hint at as more--in
honor?"
The Chancellor's voice was angry at last, as well as stern, for he
could not bear persistence--in other people--unless it were to further
some cause of his own. To the delight of the woman who had once tried
in vain to melt his iron heart, Count von Breitstein began to look
somewhat like a baited bull. Really, said the Baroness to herself,
there was an actual resemblance in feature; and joyously she searched
for a few more little ribbon-tipped banderillos.
What fun it was to ruffle the temper of the surly old brute who had
humiliated her woman's vanity in days long past, but not forgotten!
She knew the Chancellor's desire for the Emperor's marriage as soon as
a suitable match could be found; and though she was not in the secret
of his plans, would have felt little surprise at learning that some
eligible Royal girl had already been selected. Now, how amusing it
would be actually to make the old man tremble for the success of his
hopes, even if it should turn out in the end to be impossible or
undesirable to upset them!
"What could there be more--in honor?" she echoed lightly after an
instant given to reflection.
"Why, the Emperor and the girl will see a great deal of each other,
unless you banish or imprison the Mowbrays. There'll be many dances
together, many calls; in fact, a serial romance instead of a short
story. Why shouldn't his Majesty know the pleasure of a--platonic
friendship with a beautiful and charming young woman?"
"Because Plato's out of fashion, if ever he was in, among human beings
with red blood in their veins; and because, as I said, the Emperor is
above all else a man of honor. Besides, I doubt that any woman, no
matter how pretty or young, could wield a really powerful influence
over his life."
"You doubt that? Then you don't know the Emperor; and you've forgotten
some of the traditions of his house."
"Are you trying to warn me of disaster, Baroness?"
She laughed. "Oh, dear no. Of nothing disagreeable. But I should be
sorry to think, as you seem to do, that our Emperor has no youth in
his veins."
"I think nothing of the sort. What I do think is that my teachings
have not been in vain, and that he has grown up to put his duty to his
country and his own self-respect above everything. He's a strong
man--too strong to be trapped in the meshes of any pink and white
Vivien. And if he admired a young woman not of Royal blood, he would
keep his distance for her sake. You say this English miss is with her
mother at the principal hotel of Kronburg. If Leopold constantly
visited them there we should have a scandal. On the other hand, to
suggest meeting the girl outside, or incognito, would be an insult.
Either way he would be but poorly rewarding a woman who saved his
life."
Baroness von Lyndal's color rallied to the support of her rouge, and
her smile dwindled to inanity, for she had insisted upon the argument,
and it was going against her.
In her haste to vex the Chancellor, she had not stopped to study from
every side the question she had raised. So far, she had merely
succeeded in irritating him, and she owed him much more than a pin
prick. Such infinitesimal wounds she had contrived to give the man in
abundance, during her twenty-two years at the Rhaetian Court; but now,
if she hurt him at all, she would like the stab to be deep and
memorable.
To be sure, in beginning the conversation, she had thought of nothing
more than a momentary gratification, but the very heat of the argument
into which she had thrown herself had warmed her malice, and sharpened
the weapon of her wit. She could justify her expressed opinion only by
events, and it occurred to her that she might be able to shape events
in such a way that she could say with eyes, if not in words, "I told
you so."
Her fading smile brightened. "Dear Chancellor, you do well to have
faith in your Imperial pupil," said she. "You've helped to make him
what he is, and you're ready to keep him what he should be. I suppose,
even, that if, being but a young man and having the hot blood of his
race, he should stray into a primrose path, you would take advantage
of old friendship to--er--put up sign-posts and barriers?"
"Were there the slightest chance of such necessity arising," grumbled
the Chancellor, shrugging his shoulders.
"It's like your integrity and courage. What a comfort, then, that the
necessity is so unlikely to arise."
The old man looked at her with level gaze, the ruthless look that
brushes away a woman's paint and powder, and coldly counts the
wrinkles underneath. "I must have misunderstood you then, a moment
ago," he said. "I thought your argument was all the other way round,
madam?"
"I told you I was amusing myself. What can one do at a ball, when one
has reached the age when it would be foolish to dance? Why, I believe
that Lady Mowbray and her daughter are not remaining long in
Kronburg."
At last she was able to judge that she had given the Chancellor a few
uneasy moments, for his eyes brightened visibly with relief. "Ah," he
returned, "then they are going out of Rhaetia?"
"Not exactly that," said the Baroness, slowly, pleasantly, and
distinctly. "I hear that they've been asked to the country to visit
one of his Majesty's oldest friends."
* * * * *
Leopold was not supposed to care for dancing, though he danced--as it
was his pride to do all things--well. Certainly there was often a
perfunctoriness about his manner in a ball-room, a suggestion of the
soldier on duty in his unsmiling face, and his readiness to lead a
partner to her seat when a dance was over.
But to-night a new Leopold moved to the music. A girl's white arm on
his--that slender arm which had been quick and firm as a man's in his
defense; the perfume of a girl's hair, and the gold glints upon it;
the shadow of a girl's dark lashes, and the light in a pair of gray
eyes when they were lifted; the beating of a girl's heart near him;
the springtime grace of a girl's sweet youth in its contrast with the
voluptuous summer of Rhaetian types of beauty; the warm rose that
spread upwards from a girl's childlike dimples to the womanly arch of
her brows; all these charms and more which rendered one girl a hundred
times adorable, took hold of him, and made him not an Emperor, but a
man, unarmored.
When the music ceased, he fancied for an instant that some accident
had befallen the musicians. Then, when he realized that the end of the
dance had come in its due time, he remembered with pleasure a rule of
his court, established in the days of those who had been before him.
After each dance an interval of ten minutes was allowed before the
beginning of another. Ten minutes are not much to a man who has things
to say which could hardly be said in ten hours; still, they are
something; and to waste even one would be like spilling a drop of
precious elixir from a tiny bottle containing but nine other drops.
They had scarcely spoken yet, except for commonplaces which any one
might have overheard, since the day on the mountain; and in this first
moment of the ten, each was wondering whether or no that day should be
ignored between them. Leopold did not feel that it should be spoken
of, for it was possible that the girl did not recognize the chamois
hunter in the Emperor; and Virginia did not feel that she could speak
of it. But then, few things turn out as people feel they should.
Next to the throne room was the ball-room; and beyond was another
known as the "Waldsaal," which Leopold had fitted up for the
gratification of a fancy. It was named the "Waldsaal" because it
represented a wood. Walls and ceiling were masked with thick-growing
creepers trained over invisible wires, through which peeped stars of
electric light, like the chequerings of sunshine between netted
branches. Trees grew up, with their roots in boxes hidden beneath the
moss-covered floor. There were grottoes of ivy-draped rock in the
corners, and here and there out from leafy shadows glittered the glass
eyes of birds and animals--eagles, stags, chamois, wolves and
bears--which the Emperor had shot.
This strange room, so vast as to seem empty when dozens of people
wandered beneath its trees and among its rock grottoes, was thrown
open to guests whenever a ball was given at the palace; but the
conservatories and palm houses were more popular; and when Leopold
brought Miss Mowbray to the Waldsaal after their dance, it was in the
hope that they might not be disturbed.
She was lovelier than ever in her white dress, under the trees,
looking up at him with a wonderful look in her eyes, and the young
man's calmness was mastered by the beating of his blood.
"This is a kind of madness," he said to himself. "It will pass. It
must pass." And aloud,--meaning all the while to say something
different and commonplace,--the real words in his mind broke through
the crust of conventionality. "Why did you do it?"
Virginia's eyes widened. "I don't understand." Then, in an instant,
she found that she did understand. She knew, too, that the question
had asked itself in spite of him, but that once it had been uttered he
would stand to his guns.
"I mean the thing I shall have to thank you for always."
If Virginia had had time to think, she might have prepared some pretty
answer; but, there being no time, her response came as his question
had, from the heart. "I couldn't help doing it."
"You couldn't help risking your life to--" He dared not finish.
"It was to save--" Nor was there any end for her sentence.
Then perhaps it was not strange that he forgot certain restrictions
which a Royal man, in conversing with a commoner, is not supposed to
forget. In fact, he forgot that he was Royal, or that she was not, and
his voice grew unsteady, his tone eager, as if he had been some poor
subaltern with the girl of his first love.
"There's something I must show you," he said. Opening a button of the
military coat blazing with jewels and orders, he drew out a loop of
thin gold chain. At the end dangled a small, bright thing that flashed
under a star of electric light.
"My ring!" breathed Virginia.
Thus died the Emperor's intention to ignore the day that had been
theirs together.
"Your ring! You gave it to Leo. He kept it. He will always keep it.
Have I surprised you?"
Virginia felt it would be best to say "yes," but instead she answered
"no"; for pretty, white fibs cannot be told under such a look in a
man's eyes, by a girl who loves him.
"I have not? When did you guess the truth? Yesterday, or--"
"At Alleheiligen."
Silence fell for a minute, while Leopold digested the answer, and its
full meaning. He remembered the bread and ham; the cow he could not
milk; the rücksacks he had carried. He remembered everything--and
laughed.
"You knew, at Alleheiligen? Not on the mountain, when--"
"Yes. I guessed even then, I confess. Oh, I don't mean that I went
there expecting to find you. I didn't. I think I shouldn't have gone,
had I known. Every one believed you were at Melinabad. But when I
tumbled down and you saved me, I looked up, and--of course I'd seen
your picture, and one reads in the papers that you're fond of chamois
hunting. I couldn't help guessing--oh, I'm sorry you asked me this!"
"Why?"
"Because--one might have to be afraid of an Emperor if he were angry."
"Do I look angry?"
Their eyes met again, laughing at first, then each finding unexpected
depths in those of the other which drove away laughter. Something in
Leopold's breast seemed alive and struggling to be free from
restraint, like a fierce, wild bird. He shut his lips tightly,
breathing hard. Both forgot that a question had been asked; but it was
Virginia who spoke first, since it is easier for a woman than a man to
hide feeling.
"I wonder why you kept the ring after my--impertinence."
"I had a good reason for keeping it."
"Won't you tell me?"
"You're quick at forming conclusions, Miss Mowbray. Can't you guess?"
"To remind you to beware of strange young women on mountains."
"No."
"Because your own picture is inside?"
"It was a better reason than that."
"Am I not to ask it?"
"On that day, you asked what you chose. All the more should you do so
now, since there's nothing I could refuse you."
"Not the half of your Kingdom--like the Royal men in fairy stories?"
As soon as the words were out Virginia would have given much to have
them back. She had not thought of a meaning they might convey; but she
tried not to blush, lest he should think of it now. Nevertheless he
did think of it, and the light words, striking a chord they had not
aimed to touch, went echoing on and on, till they reached that part of
himself which the Emperor knew least about--his heart.
"Half his Kingdom?" Yes, he would give it to this girl, if he could.
Heavens, what it would be to share it with her!
"Ask anything you will," he said, as a man speaks in a dream.
"Then tell me--why you kept the ring."
"Because the only woman I ever cared--to make my friend, took it from
her finger and gave it to me."
"Now the Emperor is pleased to pay compliments."
"You know I am sincere."
"But you'd seen me only for an hour. Instead of deserving your
friendship, I'm afraid I--"
"For one hour? That's true. And how long ago is that one hour? A week
or so, I suppose, as Time counts. But then came yesterday, and the
thing you did for me. Now, I've known you always."
"If you had, perhaps you wouldn't want me for your friend."
"I do want you."
The words would come. It was true--already. He did want her. But not
as a friend. His world,--a world without women, without passion fiery
enough to devour principles or traditions, was upside down.
It was well that the ten minutes' grace between dances was over,
and the music for the next about to begin. A young officer, Count
von Breitstein's half-brother--who was to be Miss Mowbray's
partner--appeared in the distance, looking for her; but stopped,
seeing that she was still with the Emperor.
"Good-by," said Virginia, while her words could still be only for the
ears of Leopold.
"Not good-by. We're friends."
"Yes. But we sha'n't meet often."
"Why? Are you leaving Kronburg?"
"Perhaps--soon. I don't know."
"I must see you again. I will see you once more, whatever comes."
"Once more, perhaps. I hope so, but--"
"After that--"
"Who knows?"
* * * * *
"Once more--once more!" The words echoed in Virginia's ears. She heard
them through everything, as one hears the undertone of a mountain
torrent, though a brass band may bray to drown its deep music.
Once more he would see her, whatever might come. She could guess why
it might be only once, though he would fain have that once again and
again repeated. For this game of hers, begun with such a light heart,
was more difficult to play than she had dreamed.
If she could but be sure he cared; if he would tell her so, in words,
and not with eyes alone, the rest might be easy, although at best she
could not see the end. Yet how, in honor, could he tell Miss Helen
Mowbray that he cared? And if the telling were not to be in honor, how
could she bear to live her life?
"Once more!" What would happen in that "once more?" Perhaps nothing
save a repetition of grateful thanks, and courteous words akin to a
farewell.
To be sure Lady Mowbray and her daughter might run away, and the
negotiations between the Emperor's advisers and the Grand Duchess of
Baumenburg-Drippe for the Princess Virginia's hand might be allowed to
go on, as if no outside influence had ruffled the peaceful current of
events. Then, in the end, a surprise would come for Leopold; wilful
Virginia would have played her little comedy, and all might be said to
end well. But Virginia's heart refused to be satisfied with so tame a
last chapter, a finish to her romance so conventional as to be
distastefully obvious, almost if not quite a failure.
She had begun to drink a sweet and stimulating draught--she who had
been brought up on milk and water--and she was reluctant to put down
the cup, still half full of sparkling nectar.
"Once more!" If only that once could be magnified into many times. If
she could have her chance--her "fling," like the lucky girls who were
not Royal!
So she was thinking in the carriage by her mother's side, and the
Grand Duchess had to speak twice, before her daughter knew their
silence had been broken.
"I forgot to tell you something, Virginia."
"Ye-es, Mother?"
"Your great success has made me absent-minded, child. You looked like
a shining white lily among all those handsome, overblown Rhaetian
women."
"Thank you, dear. Was that what you forgot to say?"
"Oh no! It was this. The Baroness von Lyndal has been most kind. She
urges us to give up our rooms at the hotel, on the first of next week,
and join her house party at Schloss Lyndalberg. It's only a few miles
out of town. What do you think of the plan?"
"Leave--Kronburg?"
"She's asked a number of friends--to meet the Emperor."
"Oh! He didn't speak of it--when we danced."
"But she has mentioned it to him since, no doubt,--before giving me
the invitation. Intimate friend of his as she is, she wouldn't dare
ask people to meet him, if he hadn't first sanctioned the suggestion.
Still, she can afford to be more or less informal. The Baroness was
dancing with the Emperor, I remember now, just before she came to me.
They were talking together quite earnestly. I can recall the
expression of his face."
"Was it pleased, or--"
"I was wondering what she could have said to make him look so happy.
Perhaps--"
"What answer did you give Baroness von Lyndal?"
"I told her--I thought you wouldn't mind--I told her we would go."