The following morning George Trafford awoke from sweet dreams to the
pleasant consciousness of hot coffee and crisp rolls. He was still
occupying apartments in the Hôtel Concordia, and it was a waiter in
that excellent establishment who roused him from the glories of
slumberland at the hour of 8.30.
"Good-morning, Rudolf," said Trafford, opening a reluctant eye. "I
trust you have not forgotten my honey this morning."
"I have brought the honey, your Excellency; also a letter." Trafford
glanced at the handwriting on the envelope.
"Sweeter also than the honey and the honeycomb," he murmured. "A
letter from dreamland, Rudolf! Tell me, Rudolf, do waiters dream?"
The man laughed.
"Not often, Excellency. They are too busy by day. Once I dreamed
that I was appointed headwaiter at the Concordia."
"Ah! you are ambitious, Rudolf. My dreams are less exalted. I only
dreamed that a certain _gnadiges fräulein_ did more than 'almost'
love me; that she even cared for me 'more than the others.' It was
not a bad dream, Rudolf," he added, casting his eyes over the
missive, "and the letter is not a bad awakening."
"You have read it, Excellency?"
"Yes, it is short and sweet. '_Meet me at the confectioner's at the
corner of the Königstrasse and the Etizabethstrasse at eleven._'
That is all, but the imagination riots at the choice of rendezvous.
A sensuous woman would have chosen a restaurant, an extravagant one a
milliner's. Only a sweet one could have thought of a pastrycook's."
"I wish your Excellency joy."
"Thank you, Rudolf; my small change is reposing on the edge of the
mantelpiece; kindly select a five-krone piece and drink to my good
fortune."
At eleven o'clock Trafford was waiting outside a big corner shop,
whose ample windows revealed an alluring wealth of edible
magnificence. Hardly had the church clock finished striking when a
young woman drew near. The combination of blue veil and Russian
sables was one Trafford had seen before, and being in uniform he
saluted.
"Come inside," said Gloria.
Trafford followed obediently.
"It's so like you to meet me in a place of this kind," he said.
"We must meet somewhere," she returned, and there was a
half-mischievous glint in the eyes that looked back into his eyes as
she added:--"after what happened yesterday. It's no good meeting at
the Neptunburg--a palace has all the luxuries of an ideal home,
except privacy. This is one of the places where I was known in my
days of exile, and they will serve us chocolate and éclairs in a
private room."
"Do you know I dreamed of you last night," began Trafford, as soon as
they were alone in a cosy little room at the back.
"Naturally," she laughed.
"And in my dream you were very kind."
"Again, naturally."
"I mean," said Trafford tentatively, "you loved me 'more than the
others.'"
"You are most diverting," she said, smiling.
Trafford winced.
"You are not taking me very seriously?" he asked.
"How can I take anything very seriously? If I did, I should go mad.
I am a Queen, and Queens must marry. Custom compels. As an exile I
had no difficulty in maintaining my spinsterhood. Now, it is
different. If I do not marry you--marry you, mind, not merely go
through a marriage form with you--I shall be wedded to some young
German or Austrian Princeling, whose standard of manhood is measured
by the number of beer _seidles_ he can empty in an evening."
"I am flattered. And now for a few practical considerations.
Supposing you marry me--and like you, I am using the word in its
fullest sense--what will be the result? What will the public say?"
"The public will say little, but it will do a good deal," said Gloria
grimly. "It is true we are moving in a time of great changes; it is
true that for the moment you are a very popular person. But it is
also true that I am a Queen and you a commoner, and Grimlanders like
their Royalty undiluted. If we proclaimed ourselves man and wife we
should be wise to board the Orient express at Gleis, and steam
westward to Ostend or eastward to Constantinople."
"And you would really--really object to that course?" asked Trafford
a little sadly. "Yesterday afternoon you said, 'If the Queen of
Grimland may not wed an American I will no longer be Queen of
Grimland.'"
"Ah, but I spoke in a moment of enthusiasm," declared Gloria
unblushingly. "I had been oppressed by the nightmare of Karl's
supposed assassination. The fact that he had not really been killed,
that it was your ready wit that saved him from a cruel end, warmed my
heart wonderfully towards you. But if you had your dream last night,
so had I. Mine was less sentimental but equally pleasant. In it I
saw myself Queen of Grimland, Queen of a whole country, with no
district in revolt against me. Karl had been defeated, captured, and
exiled. I was the reigning sovereign of a loyal and loving people."
Trafford nodded gravely.
"That is the dream of a Schattenberg," he said. "It is much the same
dream that your father dreamed before he fell into the great sleep
where there are no dreams. But it is not the dream of the woman I
kissed yesterday afternoon in the Chapel Royal of the Neptunburg."
Gloria's eyes fell before his steadfast gaze. Her face softened; it
saddened under a wave of emotion--an emotion, the instant expression
of which, though easily attributable to her actress-temperament, was
nevertheless based on something far deeper.
"I wonder if I am a hard woman," she began, still looking down.
"Years of exile, of earning one's living on the variety stage,
striving--surely these are not softening influences." She paused for
him to add some sympathetic word. Whether he intended to do so or
not, he forgot it on meeting the eyes that now were looking him
through and through, as she continued: "But I do not unsay what I
said yesterday! I really like you, immensely--and perhaps I almost
love you."
Trafford took her hand and kissed it rapturously; she almost snatched
it away, and there was a ring of steel in the tones that now declared:
"But I have tasted power, and now that the horror of Karl's death is
no longer on my conscience, I wish to be the unopposed ruler of my
country."
"Even though the process of establishing your rule costs the lives of
brave men?"
Again she dropped her eyes--was silenced. She sipped her chocolate.
When she spoke, it was quietly and with absolute conviction.
"If I had known what Father Bernhardt told us, that Karl was really a
humane man and was absolutely innocent of the Archbishop's death, I
don't believe I should have headed a rebellion against him.
But--rightly or wrongly--the rebellion has succeeded and the seat of
government is mine. To falter now would be to cause more misery and
bloodshed than to go on. The people have declared against Karl, and
Karl they will not have at any price. If I were to abdicate, some
other adventurer would take my place. To withdraw myself from
Grimland now would be to leave my friends to the certain reprisals of
their enemies."
"Your argument is flawless," acknowledged Trafford. "I am _de trop_.
Ambition, to say nothing of humanity, leaves you but one course.
Neither do I complain--though I shall return a disappointed man. You
are not heartless, far from it, for yesterday in a moment of golden
light I caught a glimpse of a great splendour, the gorgeous harmonies
of a woman's heart. The vision has faded, and again I say I do not
complain. On the contrary, I thank Providence for the vision of what
might have been."
A more prolonged silence followed these words. Trafford busied
himself with his éclair, while his companion continued to stir her
chocolate, till a veritable whirlpool formed in its opaque depths.
At last she looked up.
"Of course, I'm not heartless," she said,--and she smiled as a
coquette might smile on being told that her flirtations were
dangerous,--"and of course, I like you very much, only you miss the
whole gist of my argument. If we announce our marriage now we shall
be drummed out of the country. That might suit you, but it doesn't
harmonise with the ideals that have been instilled into me from my
earliest years. If you accompany me in this projected expedition to
Weissheim,--not as my husband, but as my officer,--if you exert your
skill and valour on my behalf and help to capture Karl and win me
back my old home--the Marienkastel--there is no knowing what the
enthusiasm of the Grimlander would not do for you. If we return as
conquerers, what more fitting crown to our pageant than the union of
the vindicated Queen and her triumphant General?"
Trafford gazed at the mantled cheek and the light of expectancy that
shone in her eyes now. Certain words of Saunders' came back, ringing
in his ears: "When you really fall in love you will refuse to take
'No' for an answer. In the words of the pre-historic doggerel, you
will 'try, try again.'"
"I see," he said, "I have done something, but I have not done enough.
I will accompany you to Weissheim--a unit of your force--and I will
do my best to serve your cause. What has passed between us is
nothing, must make no difference in our relations, is merely the
burlesque conclusion of a burlesque compact. I thought I saw the
working of Fate in the incensed gloom of the Chapel Royal. The next
few weeks will prove me an idle visionary or a true seer." He
paused. "Which do you wish me to prove?"
She rose to her feet, opened her sable cloak, and disengaged a pearl
brooch from her neck. Bending over him so that her breath swept his
cheek, she fastened the trinket to the lapel of his green tunic, and
finished his subjugation with a long look into his eyes.
"A true seer," she answered.