Fessenden and Ranata were alone in the Hungarian house. Upon the
departure of the Independents--diverted and mollified--the Archduchess
had dismissed her weary ladies-in-waiting; and Alexandra, after
wandering down to the garden with her brother and friend, had stolen
away to sleep until the hour to drive.
“You heard!” said Ranata. “Do you doubt now that I could be queen in
Hungary?”
“I never doubted it; nor that your reign would be as exciting as brief.
Hungary is now enjoying her days of halcyon peace. When your father
dies she may not only have your cousin of Austria, and William, to
reckon with, but King Karl of Roumania. It is the secret and persistent
ambition of his life to win back to Roumania the lands it claims it
owned before the conquest of Árpád, and one of these is not only
Transylvania, but Hungary as far as the Theiss. He would join Austria
in any attempt to crush Hungary, and he would be abetted by all the
internal enemies of this country. Moreover, he hates William as only
one strong personality can hate another, and at the first call of
Hungary for the German Emperor, or for his second son, he would not
wait for Austria. He is a big man in a small country, and has never yet
had his opportunity; but when it comes he will grasp it, be sure of
that. But have you not had enough of all this for one day?”
“Yes--what a contrast you were! I never so fully realized the destiny
of the American race. Your brain remains as cold as your eyes until the
right moment comes to let the fires leap up. And then! Tell me--I have
thought constantly of all that you said last night--it seems to me that
you felt yourself safe enough in declaring that you would sacrifice
everything for me--ambitions, fortune, country--because you knew the
obligation never would confront you. It is I who would have to renounce
all and follow you. Austria would expel us both, and could do you no
harm.”
“It is you who are most distressingly practical to-day. Why analyze
the vows of a lover? I spoke the language of the heart last night, and
my brain took the rest it needs. You were convinced of my sincerity
then--and I am quite prepared to say it all over again.” And so he did;
but although he could make love with an intensity which Ranata would
be likely to recall in long hours of separation, he was still able to
practise the better part of valor; and with the natural egotism of man,
he was soon talking into a sympathetic ear of his hopes and plans for
the future. Never was the egotism of man so wise in its exercise. It
was the last magnet he needed to draw the soul of the woman to him. As
he unrolled his vast schemes, so practical and so ideal, Ranata forgot
her own conventional ambitions. She seemed to herself to step out of a
volume of history and mingle in the great throng of individuals, who
made their own laws and thought for themselves.
“Before many years have passed,” said Fessenden, “I hope to have
united South America in one great republic. It is not only necessary
to protect my railways--the element of personal selfishness must
enter into everything that hopes to succeed--but I want to see the
republican ideal flourish over the greater part of the civilized globe
before I die.”
“And then? Shall you rule over these vast republics?”
“Not I! I shall have all the work I want while creating them. There
may come the crisis in the United States which I have been trained to
meet, and the result might compel an interval of strong centralization.
But the reconstruction finished, those could rule who were equal to
the task. And such an interval would be brief, for the American would
not stand the infringement of his liberties a moment longer than
circumstances demanded. Although I believe in permanent centralization,
to the extent of a ruler elected for life or good behavior--and
I believe this principle is growing in the minds of all thinking
republicans who are not only sick of corruption but of seeing a fine
man in the presidential chair the slave of politicians, and shelved
coincidently with the full development of his usefulness--still that
ruler must be the free and deliberate selection of the majority of the
people, and a monarch by their will alone, with no privileges whatever
for his heirs. With democracy I have no more patience than with the
autocracy of Russia, but I should be the last to blight an instinct
which it is my desire to sow broadcast over the earth. It is for that
I wish to be remembered; they can forget the dramas as soon as they
like--”
“Ah, but tell me those!” exclaimed Ranata. “I have waited for years to
hear them.”
He entertained her with several of his adventures and exploits in South
America, but dropped the subject to tell her something of his problem
in mechanics and electricity.
“If anything was needed when I awoke at noon to-day to make me feel
as if I owned the entire universe,” he said, “it was a letter from my
chief electrician which convinced me for the first time that he was on
the verge of perfecting this old dream of mine. My father was to go out
as soon as telegraphed for and witness the practical demonstration.
Then, indeed, I practically will hold the fate of the world in the
hollow of my hand.”
Ranata stared hard at him, her pulse quickening. She had always envied
him, and now he seemed to her to embody all the hopeful ambitions of
all the world, a Titan whom only a new country with its utter disregard
of failure could have produced. What order of men would his republics
bring forth?
“But shall you never have a reverse, never fail?” she murmured. “There
is a relentless law of compensation in Nature; surely you must have
your blows, your bitterness, like other mortals.”
“I have already had enough trouble and anxiety, to say nothing of
hideous privations, fatigue, and illness to satisfy Nature for the
present. The only blow that could have reached my heart before this
would have been the death of my father.”
“Ah!” she exclaimed sharply, “you do love me--I know how much! When
this is over, will its memory mean as much to you as it will to me?
Will the loss embitter, discourage you? It has seemed to me since last
night that it will mean too much to me--that I shall need more courage
than I possess to live on. With men--with you? How would it be, with
your thousand occupations where I might not have one? Oh, at least help
me to win this country! I fear no enemies--nothing else on earth.”
“All that,” said Fessenden, “is a subject which I positively refuse
to discuss until these two months are up. All I wish you to be firmly
convinced of from this moment--and you might repeat it nightly
with your prayers lest you forget it--is that, under no possible
circumstances short of death, shall I give you up, or relax for a
moment in my determination to overcome every obstacle which either you
or your father may raise. The sooner you recognize me as your destiny
the better.”