THE OLDNESS OF THE CHANCELLOR
Leopold thought it more than possible that, by the time of his return
to Kronburg, the Chancellor would be as anxious to wriggle out of his
proposal to visit the Prince's hunting lodge, as he had been to have
it accepted a few hours before.
"He sha'n't escape his humiliation, though," the Emperor told himself.
"He shall go, and he shall beg forgiveness for his suspicions, in
sackcloth and ashes. Nothing else can satisfy me now."
Thinking thus, Leopold looked sharply from the window as his special
slowed into the central station at Kronburg, along the track which had
been kept clear for its arrival. No other train was due at the moment,
therefore few persons were on the platform, and a figure in a long
gray coat, with its face shadowed by a slouch hat, was conspicuous.
The Emperor had expected to see that figure; but vaguely he wished
there were not so much briskness and self-confidence in the set of the
massive head and shoulders. The young man believed absolutely in his
love; but he would have been gratified to detect a something of
depression in the enemy's air, which he might translate as a
foreknowledge of failure.
"I hope your Majesty will forgive the liberty I have taken, in coming
to the station without a distinct invitation to do so," were the
Chancellor's first words as he met the Emperor. "Knowing that you
would almost certainly arrive by special train, I came down from my
house some time ago, that I might be on hand without fail when you
arrived, to place my electric carriage at your service. I thought it
probable that you would not have sent to the Palace, and therefore it
might save you some slight inconvenience if I were on the spot. If you
will honor my poor conveyance--"
"Don't let us delay our business for explanations or compliments, if
you please, Chancellor," the Emperor cut him short, brusquely. "I
counted on your being here, with your carriage. Now for the hunting
lodge in the woods!"
As he spoke, his eyes were on the old man's face, which he hoped to
see fall, or change; but there was no visible sign of discomfiture,
and von Breitstein made no attempt to excuse himself from making the
proposed visit. Evidently nothing had happened during the hours since
the message by telephone, to change the Chancellor's mind.
"Yes, your Majesty," came the prompt response. "Now for the hunting
lodge in the woods. I am ready to go with you there--as I always have
been, and always shall be ready to serve you when I am needed."
It was on Leopold's tongue to say, that it would be well if his
Chancellor's readiness could be confined to those occasions when it
was needed; but he shut his lips upon the words, and walked by the old
man's side in frozen silence.
The carriage was waiting just outside the station, and the moment the
two men were seated, the chauffeur started, noiselessly and swiftly.
Both windows were closed, to keep out the chill of the night air, but
soon Leopold impatiently lowered one, forgetting the Chancellor's
old-fashioned hatred of draughts, and stared into the night. Already
they were approaching the outskirts of the great town, and flying
past the dark warehouses and factories of the neighborhood, they sped
toward the open country.
The weather, still warm the evening before--that evening of moonlight,
not to be forgotten--had turned cold with morning; and to-night there
was a pungent scent of dying leaves in the air. It smote Leopold in
the face, with the wind of motion, and it seemed to him the essential
perfume of sadness. Never again would he inhale that fragrance of the
falling year without recalling this hour.
He was half mad with impatience to reach the end of the journey, and
confound the Chancellor once for all; yet, as the swift electric
carriage spun smoothly along the white road, and landmark after
landmark vanished behind tree-branches laced with stars, something
within him, would at last have stayed the flying moments, had that
been possible. He burned to ask questions of von Breitstein, yet would
have died rather than utter them.
It was a relief to the Emperor, when, after a long silence, his
companion spoke,--though a relief which carried with it a prick of
resentment. Even the Chancellor had no right to speak first, without
permission from his sovereign.
"Forgive me, your Majesty," the old man said. "Your anger is hard to
bear; yet I bear it uncomplainingly because of my confidence that the
reward is not far off. I look for it no further in the future than
to-night."
"I, too, believe that you won't miss your reward!" returned the
Emperor sharply.
"I shall have it, I am sure, not only in your Majesty's forgiveness,
but in your thanks."
"I'll forgive you when you've asked my pardon for your suspicions, and
when you've found Miss Mowbray for me."
"I have already found her, and am taking you to her now."
"Then, you actually believe in your own story? You believe that this
sweet and beautiful young girl is a fast actress, a schemer, a friend
of your notoriously gallant friend, and willing to risk her reputation
by paying a late visit, unchaperoned, to him at his hunting lodge in
the woods! You are after all a very poor judge of character, if you
dream that we shall see her there."
"I shall see her, your Majesty. And you will see her, unless the
madness you call love has blinded the eyes of your body as well as the
eyes of your mind. That she is now at the lodge I know, for the Prince
assured me with his own lips that she had promised to motor out alone
with him, and dine."
"You mean, he told you that his friend the actress had promised. I'll
stake my life, even he didn't dare to say Miss Mowbray."
"He said Miss Brett, the actress, it's true. But when he called upon
her at her hotel (where he and I met to discuss a matter which is no
secret to your Majesty), he asked for Miss Mowbray. And the message
that came down, I heard. It was that Miss Mowbray would be delighted
to see his Royal Highness. This left no doubt in my mind that, after
giving out that she would leave to-day, the lady had remained in
Kronburg for the express purpose of meeting her dear friend the
Prince, the handsomest and best dressed young man in Europe--after
your Majesty, of course. And it was quite natural for her to hope
that, as she was supposed to be gone, and you were following her, this
evening's escapade would never be discovered."
"Please spare me your deductions, Chancellor," said the Emperor,
curtly, "and pray understand now, if you have not understood before,
that I am with you in this expedition not to prove you right, but
wrong; and nothing you can say will convince me that the Prince's
actress and Miss Mowbray are one. If we find a woman at the hunting
lodge, it will not be the lady we seek--unless she has been kidnapped;
and as you will presently be obliged to eat every word you've spoken,
the fewer such bitter pills you provide for yourself to swallow, the
better."
Thus snubbed by the young man whom he had held in his arms, an
imperious as well as an Imperial infant, the old statesman sought
sanctuary in silence. But he had said that which had been in his mind
to say, and he was satisfied. Meekness was not his _métier_, yet he
could play the part of the faithful servant, humbly loyal through
injustice and misunderstanding; and he played it now, because he knew
it to be the one effective rôle. He sat beside the Emperor with bowed
head, and stooping shoulders which suggested the weakness of old age,
his hands clasped before him; and from time to time he sighed
patiently.
As they glided under the dark arch of the Buchenwald, Leopold spoke
again.
"You have led me to suppose that our call at the hunting lodge will be
a surprise visit to the Prince. That is the case, isn't it?"
Count von Breitstein would have preferred that the question had not
been asked. He had intended to convey the impression which the Emperor
had received, but he had not clothed it in actual statement. Luckily
the Prince was as clever as he was good looking, and he could be
trusted as an actor, otherwise the old man would have been still more
reluctant to commit himself.
"Were our visit expected, we should not be likely to find the lady,"
said he. "The Prince and I are on such friendly terms, your Majesty,
that he didn't mind confessing he was to have a pretty actress as his
guest. He also answered a few questions I asked concerning her, freely
and frankly, for to do so he had to tell me only what the world knows.
How could he dream that the flirtations or the visits of a Miss Jenny
Brett could be of the slightest importance to the Emperor of Rhaetia?
Had he guessed, however, that the entertainment he meant to offer her
might be interrupted, naturally he would have taken some means to
protect her from annoyance."
"This night's work will give him cause to pick a private quarrel with
me, if he likes," said the Emperor, convinced of the Chancellor's good
faith.
"I don't think he will choose, your Majesty. You are in a mood to be
glad if he did, I fear. But no; I need _not_ fear. You will always
remember Rhaetia, and put her interests before your own wishes."
"You weren't as confident of that a few hours ago."
"Even then I knew that, when the real test should be applied, your
Majesty's cool head would triumph over the hot impulse of youth. But
see, we're passing through the village of Inseleden, fast asleep
already; every window dark. In six or seven minutes at this speed, we
shall be at the lodge."
The Emperor laughed shortly. "Add another seven minutes to your first
seven, and we shall be out of the lodge again, with Chancellor von
Breitstein a sadder and a wiser man than he went in."
Meekness was once more the part for the old man to play, and raising
his hands, palm upwards, in a gesture of generous indulgence for his
young sovereign, he denied himself the pleasure of retort.
The hunting lodge in the wood, now the property of the Chancellor's
accommodating young friend, had until recently belonged to a Rhaetian
semi-Royal Prince, who had been compelled by lack of sympathy among
his creditors to sell something, and had promptly sold the thing he
cared for least. The present owner was a keen sportsman, and though he
came seldom to the place, had spent a good deal of money in repairing
the quaint, rustic house.
Years had passed since the Emperor had done more than pass the lodge
gates; and now the outlines of the low rambling structure looked
strange to him, silhouetted against a spangled sky. He was glad of
this, for he had spent some joyous days here as a boy, and he wished
to separate the old impressions and the new.
Two tall chimneys stood up like the pricked ears of some alert,
crouching animal. The path to the lodge gleamed white and straight in
the darkness as a parting in the rough black hair of a giant. The
trees whispered gossip to each other in the wind, and it seemed to
Leopold that they were evil things telling lies and slandering his
love. He hated them, and their rustling, which once he had loved. He
hated the yellow eyes of the animal with the pricked ears, glittering
eyes which were lighted windows; he hated the young Prince who owned
the place; and he would have hated the Chancellor more than all, had
not the old man limped as he walked up the path, showing how heavy was
the burden of his years, as he had never shown it to his Emperor
before.
The path led to a hooded entrance, and ascending the two stone steps,
the Chancellor lifted the mailed glove which did duty as a knocker.
Twice he brought it down on the oak panel underneath, and the sound of
metal smiting against wood went echoing through the house, with an
effect of emptiness and desolation.
Nobody came to answer the summons, and Leopold smiled in the darkness.
He thought it likely that even the Prince was not at home. A practical
joke had been played on the Chancellor!
Again the mailed fist struck the panel; an echo alone replied. Count
von Breitstein began to be alarmed for the success of his plan. He
thanked the night which hid from the keen eyes of the Emperor--cynical
now, no doubt--the telltale vein beating hard in his forehead.
"Don't you think, Chancellor, that after all, you'd better try and
take me to some more probable, as well as more suitable, place to look
for Miss Mowbray?" he suggested, with a drawl intended to be as
aggravating as it actually was. "There doesn't appear to be any one
about. Even the care-takers are out courting, perhaps."
"But listen, your Majesty," said von Breitstein, when he knocked
again.
Leopold did listen, and heard the ring of a heel on a floor of stone
or marble.