BETWEEN MAN AND MAN
OLD "Iron Heart" was dressed in the long, double-breasted gray
overcoat, and wore, pulled over his eyes, the gray slouch hat, in
which all snapshot photographs (no others had ever been taken)
represented him.
At sight of the Emperor, leaning with folded arms against the red
plush cushions, he took off his famous hat, to show the bald, shining
dome of his great head, fringed with hair of curiously mingled black
and white.
"Good day, Your Majesty," he observed, with no sign of surprise in
voice or countenance.
The train rocked from side to side, and it was with difficulty that
the old man kept his footing; but he stood rigidly erect, supporting
himself in the doorway, until the Emperor invited him to enter and be
seated.
"I am glad that you are well enough to travel, Chancellor," cried
Maximilian. "We had none too encouraging an account of you from
Captain Otto the day before yesterday."
"I travel because you travel, Your Majesty," said "Iron Heart."
They now sat facing each other, on opposite seats, and the Emperor,
combating a boyish sense of guilt, stared fixedly at the square
visage, on which the afternoon light cruelly scored the detail of each
wrinkle.
"So?" said Maximilian.
"Your Majesty, I have served you, and your father before you. I think
you trust me somewhat?"
"No man more. But this sounds a momentous preface. Is it possible you
find it necessary to lead up to the subject, if I can have the
pleasure of doing you a favour?"
"It is no preface, Your Majesty. I am too blunt a man to begin with
prefaces when I serve in the capacity, not of diplomat, but friend.
For you have allowed me to call myself your friend."
"I have asked it of you."
"If I seemed to lead up to what I have to say, it is only for the sake
of explanation. You are wondering, perhaps, how I knew that you would
travel to-day, and why, knowing it, I ventured to follow. I learned
your intention by accident" (the Chancellor did not, for all his
boasted bluntness, tell what lay behind that accident); "wishing much
to talk over with you a pressing matter which brooks no delay, I took
this liberty, and seized the opportunity of speaking with you alone.
Some men in my situation would think it wiser to pretend that business
of their own had brought them on the journey, and that the meeting had
come about by chance. But I am not one to work in the dark, and I want
Your Majesty to know the truth." Which no doubt he did; but perhaps
not quite the whole truth.
"You raise my curiosity," said Maximilian.
"I will not keep it waiting long," said "Iron Heart." "Have I your
indulgence to speak frankly, not wholly as a servant of the Emperor to
his master, but as man to man--an old man to a young one?"
"I would have you speak in no other way," answered Maximilian; but he
uttered the words with a certain constraint, and the softness died out
of his eyes.
"I have had a letter from Friedrich, the Crown Prince of Abruzzia. It
has come to his ears that there is a reason for your Imperial
Majesty's delay in following up the first overtures for an alliance
with his family. Gossip has told him that Your Majesty's affections
have become otherwise engaged, and he has written to me as a friend,
asking me to contradict or confirm the rumour."
"I am not sure that negotiations had progressed far enough in that
matter to give him the right of inquiry," said Maximilian, flushing.
The old man spread out his hands--the pathetic hands of age--in a
deprecatory gesture. "I fear, in my zeal for Your Majesty's welfare
and the welfare of Rhaetia, I somewhat exceeded my instructions," he
confessed. "My one excuse is, that I believed your mind to be entirely
made up. I still believe so. I would listen to no one who told me
otherwise. And I will inform Friedrich that----"
"You must even get yourself and me out of the scrape as gracefully as
you can, since you admit you got us into it," broke in the Emperor,
sinfully glad of the chance to transfer a fraction of the blame to
other shoulders. "If Princess Sylvia of Eltzburg-Neuwald is as
charming as she is said to be, her only difficulty will be to choose a
husband, not to get one. For once gossip has told the truth, and I
would not pay the Princess so poor a compliment as to ask for her hand
when my heart is irrevocably given to another woman."
"It is of that other I would speak with you also, Your Majesty. Gossip
has named her. May I do the same?"
"I will save you the trouble, Chancellor," retorted Maximilian, "for I
am not ashamed that at last the common fate of all has overtaken me--
common, because they say every man loves once before he dies; yet
uncommon, because no man ever loved such a woman. There is no one in
the world like Miss de Courcy--the English lady who saved my life on
the eve of my birthday, as you know."
"It is natural that you should feel grateful, Your Majesty."
"It is natural that I should feel love; impossible that I should not
feel it."
"Natural that being still young and inexperienced in such matters,
Your Majesty should mistake gratitude for love; impossible that you
should let the mistake continue."
"If it were a mistake! I am keeping to my bargain, Chancellor, and
talking with you man to man, for I know you won't try me too far. In
such a connection it would be better not to mention the word
'mistake'. I am glad that you followed me, for I may as well say that
I meant you should know my intentions within a few days. You, of
course, would have known before any one."
"Intentions, Your Majesty? I fear I grow old and slow of
understanding."
"For you to be slow of understanding would be a change indeed. I spoke
of my intentions toward Miss de Courcy."
"You would make the lady some handsome present, as an acknowledgment
of your indebtedness?"
"Whether handsome or not would be largely a matter of opinion," said
the Emperor, smiling for the first time. "I am making her a present of
myself."
The old man had sat with his chin sunk into his short neck, peering
out from under his brows in a way he had; but he lifted his head
suddenly, and there was a look in his eyes like that of an animal who
scents danger from an unexpected quarter.
"Your Majesty!" he exclaimed incredulously. "You are your father's
son. You are Rhaetia. Your standard of honour cannot be soiled for a
woman's sake."
"You misunderstand me," said Maximilian, in haste. "I speak of
marriage."
The Chancellor's jaw dropped, and the warm mahogany hue of his skin
paled to a sickly yellow. For a moment his lips quivered in a vain
effort to formulate words, but he fought with his weakness and
conquered.
"I had dreamed of nothing as bad as this, Your Majesty," he blurted
out, with no sugaring of the truth this time. "I had heard the rumour
connecting your most august name with that of a stranger from another
country. I feared a young man's impulsiveness. I dreaded a scandal.
But forgive me, Your Majesty, this thought of yours is no less than
madness. For a man in your position, a morganatic marriage would spell
ruin----"
"A morganatic marriage was in my mind, I admit," the Emperor cut him
short once more. "But I saw the unwisdom, the injustice of that, and
decided differently."
"Praise be to heaven!" devoutly ejaculated the Chancellor, who, in
calmer moments, believed himself an atheist.
"I decided that, rather than lose something dearer than life, as dear
as honour, I would make this lady--this peerless lady--Empress of
Rhaetia," Maximilian went on.
With a cry the Chancellor sprang up, the veins in his forehead full to
bursting. His eyes glared like those of a bull that receives the
death-stroke. His working lips and the hollow sound in his throat
alarmed the Emperor, who, for a few grim seconds, feared the worst.
But the iron heart of old Eberhard von Markstein was not to be stilled
by a single blow.
He muttered a word which the younger man ignored, though it smote his
ears sharply. Then, after a silence potent with meaning, and
punctuated with a gasp, the Chancellor "found himself" again.
"No, Your Majesty; no, I say!" he panted.
"But I say yes, and no man shall give me nay. I have thought it all
out and I see the path before me," insisted Maximilian. "I will make
her a countess first; she shall be Countess of Salzbrück. Later, she
shall be Empress."
"Your Majesty, it is impossible."
"Who dares say it is impossible? Answer me that, Von Markstein. She is
already a lady of unimpeachable breeding, reputation, and birth----"
"Your Majesty's pardon, while _I_ say it is impossible--I, Von
Markstein. For I tell you she has neither the position nor the birth
that she claims, and I can prove it!"
Maximilian turned on him fiercely; then the old face, so closely
associated with every crisis of his life, appealed to his youth and to
his manhood. "Take care, Von Markstein," he said, but in a different
tone from that which he had meant to use.
The Chancellor--for all his apparent brusquerie, a diplomat before he
was a man--was quick to see and understand the change, as quick to
take advantage.
"Punish me as you will, Your Majesty," he said, making no further
effort to control the shaking of his voice and hands, since age and
infirmity were at this moment his best advocates. "I am an old man; my
work for you and yours is nearly done. Cheerfully will I bow to
dismissal, if my last effort in your service may save the ship of
state from wreck. I would not speak what I do not know; and I do know
that the two English ladies who have been staying at the Schloss
Lynarberg are not the persons they pretend to be."
"Who has been lying to you, Chancellor?" cried Maximilian, who held
the temper he vowed not to lose in clenched hands.
"To me, no one. To Your Majesty, to society in Salzbrück, two
adventuresses have lied."
The Emperor leapt to his feet. "If you were a young man, I would kill
you for that," he said.
"I know you would. Even as it is, my life is yours. But, for God's
sake, for your dead father's sake, hear me first."
Maximilian stared out of the window at the vanishing landscape, his
lips a tense white line. Presently he sat down.
"Very well, I will hear you," he said. "Because I do not fear to hear
anything that you can say."
Already the Chancellor had marshalled his array of facts in their
proper order, and now he lost no time in seizing the opening offered,
lest--before all he had to say was said--the narrow way should close
again.
"When I heard of Your Majesty's growing admiration for the lady who
was fortunate enough to save your life," he began, "I looked for her
name and her mother's in a book which the English nation values next
to the Bible. It is called 'Burke's Peerage'. There I found the name
of Lady de Courcy, widow of a certain Sir Thomas, Baron; mother of a
son, still a child, and of one living daughter, much older, a young
woman with many names and twenty-eight years."
The Emperor, who had been frowning into space, turned a quick look of
surprise on his Chancellor. Beginning to speak, he changed his mind,
and bit his lip instead.
For a second the Chancellor paused, hoping for the lead which he had
expected here; but finding that it did not come, he went on----
"I had seen the ladies at Your Majesty's birthday ball and it seemed
to me impossible that the younger could have reached so mature an age.
Besides, she herself confessed to but twenty-one. This, perhaps, was
not unusual, yet it set me thinking. The De Courcys, I learned by a
little further reading in Burke, were distantly connected with the
family of Eltzburg-Neuwald, which struck me, in the circumstances, as
an odd coincidence. A Miss de Courcy became the Duke of Northminster's
wife; and to her was born a daughter who eventually married the late
Grand Duke of Eltzburg-Neuwald, father of Princess Sylvia and the
present Crown Prince of Abruzzia. Acting as I felt my duty to Your
Majesty and Rhaetia bade me act, I at once telegraphed to Friedrich,
and also to Baron von Mienigen, Your Majesty's Ambassador to England."
"What did you telegraph?" asked the Emperor, with ominous calm.
"Nothing compromising to Your Majesty or to the lady; I trust you feel
confident of that. I inquired of Friedrich if he had English relatives
named De Courcy--a mother and daughter--travelling in Rhaetia; and
begged that, if so, he would describe them, wiring an answer to me at
Markstein. To Von Mienigen I said that all possible particulars
regarding the widow of Sir Thomas de Courcy and her daughter, with an
account of their present movements, would place me under personal
obligations, and that I hoped for a speedy reply by telegraph. These
messages I sent off late in the afternoon of the day before yesterday.
Last night I received the answers, within two or three hours of one
another. They are now here" (he tapped the breast of his coat); "have
I Your Majesty's permission to show them?"
"I will read what your friends have to say if you wish," returned
Maximilian coldly. His face told nothing; but the Chancellor looked
down to hide the flicker of hope under his eyelids. With a slight
tremor in the big, blunt fingers, he unbuttoned his coat and drew out
a handsome coroneted pocket-book, given him by Maximilian. The gift
had been made on the old man's sixty-fourth birthday, almost a year
ago; and the sight of it now produced a certain effect, as, perhaps,
"Iron Heart" was quietly aware.
From the pocket-book came two folded papers; and, with a bow, the
Chancellor placed them in his Imperial master's hands.
The first that Maximilian opened was a telegram in Italian from the
Crown Prince of Abruzzia.
"Have not the remotest idea where Lady de Courcy and her daughter are
living; may be in Rhaetia or at the South Pole," it was worded with
characteristic flippancy. "Have not seen either since a visit paid to
England eight years ago, then only once. Lady de Courcy is a tall old
party of the dragon order, with a nose like a rocking-horse. My cousin
Mary is dark, and takes after her mother. Is Otto to be the happy
man?--FRIEDRICH."
With absolutely expressionless features, Maximilian tossed the paper
on to the seat by his side and unfolded the other.
"Pardon delay," the Rhaetian Ambassador to Great Britain began his
message. "Have been obliged to make inquiries. Lady de Courcy is the
widow of Baron de Courcy, who died ten years ago, leaving one son and
a daughter. The lady is not rich, and in her son's minority lets her
town and country houses, living mostly abroad. She is at present in
Calcutta, India, where her daughter, Miss Mary de Courcy, is engaged
to marry a Judge Morley, a man of some distinction. Kindly let me hear
if there are other particulars you desire to know, and I will
endeavour to obtain them.--MIENIGEN."
"Well!" the Emperor threw aside the telegram, and laughed. Rather a
forced laugh, perhaps, but still it was a laugh. "Is it possible that
so wise a man of the world as yourself, Chancellor, dares to call two
ladies adventuresses on such slight grounds as these; or have you more
cards up your sleeve?"
Von Markstein breathed quickly. He had counted on the Emperor's former
strict regard for Court etiquette, the well-known sternness of his
principle; and he had not prepared himself for such an answer. But
then, he had yet to make the acquaintance of Maximilian as a man in
love.
He hesitated for a reply. In truth, he had founded his theory on this
basis, and he still considered it amply sufficient to satisfy any one
save a madman. But if Maximilian were mad, he must be treated
accordingly; therefore the Chancellor condescended to "bluff."
"It is not yet time to play the trumps which I keep in my sleeve, Your
Majesty," he said, as firmly as if he had not been conscious of his
sleeve's emptiness. "But I am sure, when you have thought the matter
over--perhaps deigned to talk it over with me--you will see that the
cards I have laid before you are all-sufficing. The ladies styling
themselves De Courcy have come to Rhaetia under false colours. They
have either deceived Lady West, or they have forged the letters of
introduction purporting to be from her."
"Why didn't you telegraph Lady West, while your hand was in, my
friend?" asked Maximilian, feigning indifference to the answer.
"I did, Your Majesty, since you ask the question. At least, not
knowing the address which would find her soonest, I wired a friend of
hers, an acquaintance of my own, begging him to speak with Lady West,
not mentioning my name in the matter. But as yet I have received no
response to that telegram."
"Until you do, I should think that even an old cynic like yourself,
Chancellor, might have given two defenseless, inoffensive ladies the
benefit of the doubt."
"Inoffensive, you call them?" protested "Iron Heart" incredulously.
"Inoffensive, when they came to this country for the purpose of using
the young woman's beauty to ensnare Your Majesty's affections, to
entrap you into some sort of declaration? But, great heaven, it is
true indeed that my brain feels the advance of years! I have forgotten
to implore that Your Majesty will tell me whether you have mentioned
the word _marriage_ to the lady? I pray that you have not so far
compromised your self and Rhaetia."
"I will answer that question by another. Do you believe that Miss de
Courcy came to Rhaetia for the express purpose of 'entrapping me', as
you call it?"
"In truth, I scarcely credit even _her_ ambition with as high a flight
as Your Majesty's avowed intentions. I believe that she would have
been satisfied with far less--_far less_."
"In that case, you think she would have been overjoyed with an offer
to become the morganatic wife of the Emperor?"
"Overjoyed is a mild word, Your Majesty. Overwhelmed might be nearer."
"Yet I tell you that she refused me last night, and is leaving Rhaetia
to-day rather than listen to further entreaties."
Maximilian leaned forward to launch this thunderbolt, his brown
hands on his knees, his eyes eager. The recollections, half-bitter,
half-sweet, called up by his own words, caused Sylvia to appear in
his imagination more beautiful, more completely desirable even than
before.
He was delighted with the expression on Von Markstein's face, though
it quickly faded. "Now, what arguments have you left?" he broke out in
the brief silence.
"All that I had before--more, indeed. For what Your Majesty has said
only shows that the lady is more ambitious, more self-confident,
therefore more dangerous, than I had supposed. She staked much upon
the power of her charms; and she might have won, had you not an old
servant who wouldn't be fooled by the enchantments of Helen herself."
"She _has_ won," said Maximilian. Then, hastily: "God forgive me for
chiming in with your humour, and speaking as if she had played a game.
That is far enough from my meaning. By simply being herself she has
won me, such as I am; she has proved that, if she cares at all, it is
for the man and not the Emperor, since she called an offer which most
ambitious women would have welcomed, an insult. Yes, Chancellor, that
was the word she used; and it was almost the last she said to me;
which is the reason I am travelling to-day. And nothing that you have
told me has any power to hold me back."
"By heaven, Your Majesty, I believe you look upon yourself from the
point of view you credit to this English girl! You forget the Emperor
in the man."
"I have thought well, and at last I see nothing in one which need
interfere with the other."
"Love indeed makes men blind, and I see it spares not the eyes of
emperors."
"I have given my word to bear with you and your tongue, Von
Markstein."
"And I know that you will keep it. I must speak; I speak for Rhaetia,
and for your better self! Your Majesty, I understand that you are now
following this lady with the purpose of informing her that she has
triumphed that she is to be the Empress."
"If she will have the Emperor for her husband."
"A lady whose name is of so little value to her that she steals
another! The nation will not bear it, Your Majesty."
"I think you speak for yourself, not for Rhaetia, Chancellor," said
Maximilian. "I am not so old as you by four-and-thirty years, yet I
believe I can judge of what my people will bear at least as well as
you can. The law which obliges an Emperor of Rhaetia to marry Royalty
is an unwritten law, a law solely of custom, handed down through many
generations. I will not spoil my life by submitting to its yoke, since
by breaking it the nation gains, rather than loses. You have seen Miss
de Courcy. Where could I find another such woman for my wife--for
Rhaetia's Empress?"
"You have not seen Princess Sylvia of Eltzburg-Neuwald, who is famed
for her beauty."
"I have no wish to see her; her beauty is for him who has not looked
on perfection. There is but one woman in the world for me; and I swear
to you, Von Markstein, if I cannot have her, I will go to my grave
unmarried. Let the crown fall to my uncle's son. I'll not perjure
myself--no, not even for Rhaetia."
The Chancellor bowed his head and held up his hands, for with gesture
alone was he able to express his feelings.
"As I said," Maximilian went sharply on, "it shall be the Countess of
Salzbrück who becomes the Empress. If my people love me, they will
love her, and rejoice in my happiness. If they complain, why, we shall
see who is master; whether to be Emperor of Rhaetia means being a mere
figure-head or not. In some countries Royalty is but an ornamental
survival of a picturesque past, a King or Queen is no more than a
puppet which the nation loads with magnificence to do itself honour.
But that is not yet so in Rhaetia, as I am ready to prove, if prove it
I must. For my part, I think I shall be spared the trouble, for we
Rhaetians love romance in high or low; you only are the exception,
Chancellor. And as for the story you have told me, and proved to your
satisfaction, though not to mine, I would give _that_ for it!" And the
Emperor snapped his fingers.
"You still believe, despite what Friedrich and Von Mienigen say, that
mother and daughter are Lady and Miss de Courcy?"
"I believe that, whoever they may be, they are of stainless
reputation, and that any apparent mystery is capable of satisfactory
explanation. Knowing Miss de Courcy, it would be impossible to believe
less well of her. She is herself; that is enough for me. Perhaps,
Chancellor, the mistake is all your own, and there are two Lady de
Courcys."
"Only one is mentioned in Burke, Your Majesty."
"Burke isn't gospel, whatever English people think."
"Pardon me, it is the gospel of the British peerage. It can no more be
guilty of an error than Euclid."
"Nor can Miss de Courcy be guilty of a theft. I'll stake my life on
that; and I tell you again, Chancellor, that your lame conclusions
have proved nothing."
The old man accepted his rebuke in momentary silence. But after a
pause, equal to three or four whole notes in music, he spoke slowly
and respectfully:
"Your Majesty referred, a short time ago, to certain other cards,
which you suggested--in a playful way--I might be concealing for
future use. I did not deny the accusation, and if I have not yet laid
down these cards, Your Majesty, do not take it as a sign that they are
not in my possession."
"It is often good policy to lead trumps," said Maximilian, not without
a sneer.
"In whist, but not in all games, Your Majesty. I hold mine for the
present. But--is your indulgence for the old man quite exhausted?"
"Not quite, though slightly strained, I will confess," Maximilian
said, tempering the words with half a smile.
"Then I have one, and only one, more important question to ask,
venturing to remind you first that, to the best of my belief, I have
acted solely in your interest. If I feel that such a step as you
contemplate would be my death blow, it is simply because I love you
and love Rhaetia before all else. Tell me, Your Majesty, this one
thing. If it were proved to you that the lady you know as Miss de
Courcy was, not only not the person she pretended to be, but in other
respects unworthy of your love--unworthy in a way that no man can
forgive--what would you do then?"
"You speak of impossibilities."
"But if they were _not_ impossibilities?"
"In such a case I would do as other men do--spend the rest of my life
in trying to forget a lost ideal."
"I thank Your Majesty; that is all I now ask. I suppose--you will
continue your journey?"
"Yes, I continue my journey as far as Wandeck, where I hope to find
Lady and Miss de Courcy."
"Then, Your Majesty, when I have expressed my deep gratitude for your
forbearance--even though I failed to be convincing--I will trouble you
no longer."
The Chancellor rose, slowly and painfully, with a reminiscence of the
gout, and Maximilian regarded him in surprise, "What do you mean?" he
asked.
"Only that since I can do no further good, I shall, with your
permission, get out at this station, and go back to Salzbrück."
The Emperor realized, what he had not noticed until this moment, that
the train was slowing down, as it passed into the suburbs of a town.
He and the Chancellor had talked together for a full hour, and he was
far from regretting the prospect of being left to himself. More than
once he had come perilously near to losing his temper, forgetting his
gratitude and the old man's years. How much longer he could have held
out, under a continued strain of provocation, he did not know; and he
spoke no word of dissuasion, as Count von Markstein picked up his hat
and buttoned the well-known gray overcoat for departure.
"I have passed pleasanter hours in your society, I admit," said
Maximilian, when the train stopped. "But I thank you for your
motives, if not your maxims; and here's my hand."
The Chancellor bowed low, until only the shining top of his bald head
was visible, as he accepted the token of amnesty.
"If Your Majesty would grant me yet one more favour in this
connection, I should be grateful," he declared. "I find myself
fatigued by the anxieties of the past few days, and I shall rest for
some hours at my house in Salzbrück. Will you communicate with me by
telephone when you have reached Wandeck, saying whether you remain
there; whether you return at once; or whether you go farther?"
"I will do that willingly," said Maximilian. Again he pressed the
Chancellor's hand, which was very cold, as the hands of old persons
sometimes are; and five minutes later he was journeying on, alone.