Fessenden drew a long and audible breath. It had not occurred to him
soon enough to keep tally, but he felt justified in assuming that
he had answered eight hundred questions. The power and magnetism
of the Emperor still impressed him, but the fascination had waned.
When he had boarded the yacht early in the afternoon, excited with
a sensation that was half eager curiosity, half aggressive fear of
being patronized, and had received a hearty greeting from a man as
informal as he was charming, Fessenden had promptly conceived his first
enthusiasm for a contemporary. He had as promptly reminded himself that
he too intended to inspire enthusiasms--that his was not the rôle of
the follower; nevertheless he had beamed back upon his imperial host;
and, in spite of a flinty reserve in the background of both pairs of
eyes, a mutual friendship was conceived at once. The Emperor had taken
care to cement his personal fascination by exhibiting the machinery
of his new yacht to his curious young guest, and a twenty-minutes’
argument on a subject of which one had much practical knowledge and
the other almost as much by theory and observation, established a
respect as strong as the sentiment. But when they were seated alone on
deck, the Emperor’s inquiring mind was no longer to be restrained. A
conversation with Mr. Abbott the day before had excited his curiosity;
his interrogations began upon Fessenden’s babyhood; and then, with
the rapid strokes of a minute impressionist, never losing sight of
causes and effects, he built up a complete picture of a self-made boy
with a beneficent providence in the background. In three-quarters of
an hour he not only knew the boy in the wilderness as well as the boy
had known himself, but the history of the Nettlebecks, the size and
condition of their farm, their attitude--or, as he discovered, their
lack of attitude--towards Germany, the area of the Adirondack tract,
the attention--or lack of attention--given it by the government, the
inferior condition, as compared with Germany, of its forests, its
roads, its bridges. His questions and comments showed such grasp and
activity of intelligence that for a time Fessenden was as interested as
the Man of Questions, and there were intervals when he was permitted
to give a bit of thrilling description, notably of logging-camps and
“driving,” which, as the Emperor’s eyes kindled and his horned upper
lip twitched, flattered him for five or six consecutive minutes.
But from the Adirondacks, William passed swiftly to the Western
University, and here his curiosity threatened to be insatiable. His
questions indicated that Harvard and Yale could tell him no secrets,
but of this more modern institution he had never heard until the day
before; and an enterprise so novel, practical, and cheap appealed
irresistibly to a ruler bent upon modernizing his country and making it
the strongest industrially in Europe. He made no secret of the cause
of his interest, and Fessenden sympathized heartily with the ambitious
and energetic young monarch, and glowed at the thought of flinging a
handful of American seeds broadcast upon the German Empire. But at
the end of an hour and a quarter, when he had not only presented a
picture of the university in all its complex details, from its methods
of military drill to the last drop of grease in the machine-shops,
but had sketched the personalities of all the professors and the most
notable of the students, the strident tones of the august interlocutor
seemed to be banging about in his brain, the abrupt rapid firing to
have torn his nerves to tatters. The impatient action of his lungs
receiving no attention from his host, whose eyes were concentrated and
glittering, he sprang suddenly to his feet.
“Look here!” he exclaimed. “I really can’t stand it any longer. I’ll
come back to-morrow, if you like. I think you are a great man, and I’m
only too delighted to help you in any way I can, but if you ask me
another question to-day I’ll jump off the yacht.”
For a second the Emperor’s eyes had flashed with a haughty surprise
which gave Fessenden a passing glimpse of outraged majesty, but he
recovered himself swiftly, and before the plaint finished he had sprung
to his feet and grasped Fessenden’s hand, looking like a contrite
school-boy.
“I beg your pardon,” he stammered. “How inhospitable!--I never was so
tactless in my life. But you have interested me so deeply. You are the
most extraordinary young man--will you forgive me? and will you do me
the honor to return for dinner? Mr. Abbott comes too.”
A warm responsiveness rushed through Fessenden’s veins and flashed
from his frank impatient eyes; and he returned the hearty grasp of
the other’s hand. But although the two men were mutually and strongly
attracted, almost to the point of effusiveness, they nevertheless,
and almost unconsciously, stared hard and long at each other. For
the moment, despite aggressive differences, they looked alike. Their
personalities pushed aside the mask of their features and snatched the
knowledge that for them it was love or hate, friendship or enmity,
mutual assistance or a bitter lifelong struggle, which might waste
their energies and thwart their most passionate hopes.
William was the older and subtler. He laid his hand affectionately on
his new friend’s shoulder. “I have suspected something of your father’s
ultimate plans for you,” he said. “Now I am sure. I can help you as
much as you can help me. The next time we are alone, turn the tables
and ask me as many questions as you like. There is no reason why you
should ever remind yourself that I am an Emperor--why our friendship
should not be as informal and sincere as that of your charming sister
and the daughter of the Emperor of Austria.”
“Do you know my sister?”
“Of course, and since she was twelve years old. But her chosen friend
is my sworn enemy.”
* * * * *
That night, in the retirement of his state-room, Fessenden brushed
his hair backward and his mustache upright. The Emperor at dinner had
drawn his coils more closely. He had been brilliant, demonstrative,
instructive, humorous, almost unegotistical. He had made Fessenden
shine without asking a question, and he had toasted Mr. Abbott in the
effusive rhetoric with which one ripened sovereign disguises his fear
of another. Fessenden forgot his long array of self-made heroes--even
those who had been cradled in purple and yet ridden victoriously
through the pages of history. He took up an autographed picture of
William, presented at parting, and studied it attentively, then
regarded his own smooth young face with dissatisfaction.
“However,” he thought, “in his earlier photographs he had even less
character than I have. It’s since he got his own way that he’s put it
on with a brush. I suppose I can have that eagle roll of the eye in
time, too, if I choose, and square my iron jaw, and look as if I were
hewn out of finely tempered steel. He has a sensitive mouth, all the
same.”
In a moment he parted his short hair rapidly and brushed his mustache
into a dejected curve. “I’d like to see myself!” he thought, with some
irritation. “He _would_ have the laugh on me to-morrow!”
He sat for an hour and pondered deeply on all that had passed between
himself and the Emperor of Germany that day. Then he started up
suddenly, opened the door of the adjoining state-room, and awakened his
father.
“What does William want?” he demanded.
“Europe and South America,” murmured Mr. Abbott sleepily.