"THE EMPEROR WILL UNDERSTAND"
It was for refuge that the Princess fled to her own room.
A boudoir shared by the Grand Duchess adjoined it, and entering there,
to her dismay the girl saw her mother lying on a sofa, attended by
Ernestine, the French maid.
Virginia's heart sank. She had supposed the Grand Duchess to be in the
white drawing-room with the Baroness, and the other guests of the
house. Now there was no hope that she might be left alone and
unquestioned. And the girl had longed to be alone.
"At last!" exclaimed a faint voice from the sofa. "I thought you would
never come."
The Princess stared, half-dazed, unable yet to tear her mind from her
private griefs. "Are you ill, Mother?" she stammered. "Had you sent
for me?"
"I came very near fainting in the drawing-room," the Grand Duchess
answered. "Ernestine, you may leave us now."
The French woman went out noiselessly.
Still Virginia did not speak. Could it be that there had been another
spy, beside Egon von Breitstein, and that her mother already knew how
the castle of cards had fallen? Was it the news of defeat which had
prostrated her?
"Have you--did any one tell you?" the girl faltered.
"I've had a telegram--a horrible telegram. Oh, Virginia, I am not
young, as you are. I am too old to endure all this. I think you should
not have subjected me to it."
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."