THE END
When I reached Minna's house, I had an experience that at first amused
me. I could not, of course, any longer treat the house as my own, nor
look on myself as having any right to enter, and I found the servants
very reluctant to admit me at all, and it was only after some difficulty
that I succeeded in getting shown into a room close to the door, while
they said they would carry my message. I waited in some little fever of
impatience, and when the delay had grown into minutes I began to wonder
that Minna should take so coolly the fact of my return and the news she
must know I should carry. I saw the explanation, however, when the door
was opened and the Baroness Gratz sailed in, pompous and very angry.
"What can be your business here now?" she asked, staring at me through
her eyeglass.
"I have come to see Minna," I replied, with an inclination to smile at
her conduct.
"I am astounded that you should have the assurance to come here after
your egregious imposture. Of course you do not expect to see her?"
"Indeed I do," said I quickly, "and as soon as possible."
"And pray in what character now?"
This with a contemptuous and insulting curl of the lip. I paused to give
my reply the greater emphasis.
"In a double character--a messenger from his Majesty the Emperor, and as
her affianced husband."
"You are not her affianced husband, and I will not suffer that tale to
be told in my presence. As for the rest, it is more like a play-actor's
story. You imposed upon us too long. You will not do it again." She said
this very angrily indeed, and added, almost spitefully: "The countess
does not wish to see you."
"In this case I am afraid she cannot choose," I answered. "The Emperor's
business cannot wait upon any prejudices for or against his messengers."
There was a little stretch of authority insinuated in this. "Moreover, I
am bound to say that I prefer to have her decision straight from
herself."
"You suggest that I lie, I suppose," she cried, her eyes flashing. "You
are too brave a man not to seize a chance of insulting a defenceless
woman. That is your stage chivalry. But you will find I am not so
defenceless as you suppose."
She rang the bell sharply twice, and then, somewhat to my surprise, and
a good deal to my pleasure, the Baron Heckscher was shown in.
"I am told you wish to see me, baroness," he said, ignoring my presence.
"I wish you to tell this person what we have decided as to his
prosecution."
I swung round on him instantly.
"I am glad there is a man to deal with. How dare you presume to meddle
in my affairs, Baron Heckscher?"
"Really--but how shall I call you? Not the Prince any longer, I presume?
Then what?" and he regarded me with an insolent smile.
"His Majesty the Emperor, within the last few minutes, has been good
enough to call me by my own name--the Count von Rudloff. That may be a
precedent good enough for even you to follow."
He stared at me in blank astonishment. The fact that I had been closeted
with the Emperor might mean everything to him, and at the thought all
other considerations were dwarfed. I enjoyed his discomfiture. All his
insolence disappeared.
"You do not believe what he says, surely?" cried the vindictive old lady
when he made no immediate answer, for he stood in great perplexity what
course to take toward me.
"You will see you cannot remain here in the face of the baroness's
attitude," he said to me at length, with an air that was half truculent
and half deprecatory.
I laughed.
"I see you are vastly disconcerted to hear that I have had an audience
with his Majesty, and have left him under circumstances that augur ill
for you; and well you may be," I added meaningly. "You dare to meddle in
my matters at a time when you will need all your wits to save your own
from shipwreck. But I have had enough of you, and of this folly. I now
demand in the name of the Emperor to see the Countess Minna von
Gramberg, and if you attempt to stop me," I said sternly to the Baroness
Gratz, "the consequences may be far more grave than you think."
Her anger and dislike of me gave her plenty of courage, however, and she
still set me at defiance, abusing me for an impostor and a cheat; and
when I declared that if they did not take my message to Minna I would
myself go straight to her rooms, she planted herself in front of the
door and dared me to attempt to leave it for that purpose, and vowed she
would call the servants if I would not go away.
The situation began to verge upon the ridiculous, despite the fact that
it was in a measure embarrassing. I could not for the moment see what to
do, and was debating this in my thoughts when a sudden turn was given to
matters by the entrance of Minna herself, the door being opened from
without.
"Ah, Minna!" I cried, hastening to her.
The Baroness Gratz stepped in between us, however, and lifted her hand
as if to keep me away.
"The countess is here in my charge," she cried to me; "and while that is
so I forbid you to go near her."
But love laughs at prohibitions. A moment later we were hand-locked, and
she had read in my glad face that my news was good. Then she turned
angrily upon the baroness, her face flushed and her eyes shining:
"You have no right to interfere with me," she said, her words shortly
and sharply spoken. "I have just heard, to my intense indignation, that
you have even ventured to tell my servants who shall and who shall not
enter my house. Is this true?"
"So far as it relates to this person, of course it is true. You are in
my charge, and it is my duty----"
"You have mistaken your duty and overstepped your privileges. You have
no right to give such orders, and to do it in my name. You must have
known as well as I that the last man in the world against whom my door
would ever be shut would be--my affianced husband;" and she raised her
head, and stood very erect, looking rarely beautiful in her pride and
happiness.
"I did it to save you from the wiles of an adventurer who----"
"Silence, aunt Gratz, and shame to you for those words," cried Minna
hotly. "It was this 'adventurer,' as you dare to say, who saved me from
the hands of the villain whose schemes you helped, and from the
cowardly double plot of the Baron Heckscher there. As for you, sir, if
you knew the character of your puppet and tool von Nauheim, as I firmly
believe you did," she cried to Baron Heckscher, "there are no words bad
enough to paint the infamous vileness of your treachery. While
pretending to conspire in my interest, and while professing loyalty to
me and mine, you plotted to ruin and dishonor me; and when I find you
here to-day I can only believe you have some further abominable motive
or plot against me, and that you are here to suborn some of those about
me for your purposes. Be good enough to leave the house."
"I have come to protest to you----" he began in reply.
"I decline to listen to you, sir," she interrupted, with quiet dignity.
He stood a moment, scowling viciously, and then, with an ugly glance at
me, said:
"Your nameless friend there----"
"I have already told you," I broke in angrily, "that I am the Count von
Rudloff, and that the Emperor himself has addressed me in my name."
"I have known for some time all the facts as to this," added Minna, a
swift flash from her eyes telling me her delight at the news, "and of
the load of infinite obligation I owe to the Count von Rudloff; not the
least part of it is for the defeat and exposure of your schemes against
me. Be good enough to spare me the necessity of bidding my servants
expel you from the house."
"You had better go, baron," I put in. "You will probably find at your
house by this time a summons to the Emperor's presence, for he has heard
from me the whole story of your acts."
This statement completed his disquiet, and without another word he
hurried away.
"You will be troubled by him no more, Minna," I said. "I bring you the
best of news. The Emperor has given a personal pledge to answer for your
safety and to uphold your interests."
"The Emperor!" she cried in a tone of surprise.
"More than that: I have told him all, and he has acknowledged my title,"
and I showed her the Imperial letter.
Her face shone with pride and delight.
"I can forgive every one now, for it has all ended so splendidly for
you," she said.
"For us," I corrected; and she acknowledged the correction with a blush
and a smile of love which exasperated the Baroness Gratz, who had been
listening to us in indignant silence.
"Then I suppose you have no more use for me?" she declared, with an
angry toss of the head, as she turned to leave us.
"I am afraid you yourself have made it difficult for you to share in my
happiness--in our happiness, I mean," said Minna gently. "I am so happy
that I have no room for any thought on that score but regret that it
should be so."
"You were always an ungrateful girl, Minna," replied the old lady very
ungraciously, bitter to the end against me. "And I have no wish to share
with you, or deprive you of any part of, such happiness as you may
expect to find in company with a man who is sometimes play-actor,
sometimes Prince, and always an impostor," and with that parting taunt
she flung away.
"Poor aunt Gratz!" sighed Minna.
Then she put her hands in mine, and, nestling close to me, asked with a
winsome coquettishness:
"Am I ungrateful, Karl?"
My answer may be guessed, and it took long in telling. But we returned
after a time to the ways of common sense, and then I told her what had
passed during the audience with the Kaiser; that I was to travel for a
year, and then return to Berlin to take up formally my old title and
position.
At first the news brought a cloud to her happy face.
"A year is a long time, Karl," she murmured. "Shall you never be in
either Munich or Gramberg all that time?"
"I think not. I expect it means at least a year away from the
Fatherland."
She was silent and looked almost sad.
"But a year will soon pass," I whispered.
A gesture of pretty reproach answered me.
"If you would make a little sacrifice, it would help, I think."
"Sacrifice!" she echoed, not catching my meaning. And when I did not
reply she lifted her head from my shoulder and peered into my eyes, her
own full of curiosity.
"You used to pride yourself on reading my secrets," said I.
She thought a minute; then a look of wonderment shone in her eyes,
followed almost directly by a great, glad blush that spread all over her
face, dyeing her cheeks with crimson and driving her to hide them
against my shoulder.
"I don't guess this one," she said.
But I was sure she had.
"Don't?"
"Won't, then," she murmured into my coat lapel.
"It could not be yet, of course," said I. "But in three months----"
"You said sacrifice," she interrupted, and glanced up with a quick
darting of the eyes.
"It would have to be very quiet--very, very quiet."
"It is no sacrifice to travel--in company."
And there we left it; but we knew well enough each other's hopes and
desires.
* * * * *
To accomplish our purpose called for some little tact and effort,
because the Emperor was for having Minna taken to Berlin when the Munich
troubles had been arranged.
His prompt and drastic measures soon settled these, indeed.
An official announcement was made that the King had been suffering from
an indisposition, but had happily recovered completely; and a couple of
days later saw him back at the palace--but with a change in the
executive which was calculated to work vastly beneficial results for the
country. The Heckscher party was broken up, their influence destroyed,
and their leaders dealt with secretly, but in some cases none the less
severely. The question of the succession to the throne was settled upon
a sound basis--one of the points being the renunciation by Minna of all
the Gramberg claims.
And it was in settling this that the matter of her marriage was mooted
and the Imperial consent gained to her becoming my wife. We succeeded,
too, in getting the necessary interval fixed at three months.
The time passed very pleasantly. It was the sweet preface to a life-long
romance.
As the outcome of the dash we had made for the throne I had one or two
arrangements to complete, and in some respects the most difficult of
these was in regard to the Corsican Praga. I could not retain him in my
service, because of his association with the death of Minna's brother;
while I hoped, too, that the time would never recur when I might have
need of his clever, sharp, ready sword. I told him the case plainly, and
he was too careless to make demur. He was going to marry and settle in
Berlin, he assured me--his bride was to be the actress, Clara Weylin,
who had made her peace with him in the score of her act of
treachery--and he meant to be the greatest fencing master in Berlin, he
declared. I gave him as a wedding present a considerable sum of money,
and we parted with many assurances, characteristic and voluble, on his
part that he would ever be devoted to me and my interests.
Steinitz I kept with me as secretary, and von Krugen was to remain as
guardian of our interests at Gramberg. There was one commission we gave
to the two just before our marriage--to go to Charmes and endeavor to
bring the real von Fromberg to Munich to be present at the marriage.
Minna and I were together when they started, and she was looking more
radiant and beautiful than ever in the anticipative joy of the marriage.
I gave them full instructions, and then, with a smile, I turned to von
Krugen.
"Be more careful this time," I said, "and be sure you bring the right
man."
"I could not have brought a better man last time, count," he replied.
And in the tone and earnestness spoke all the regard and esteem of a
stanch and sincere friend.
"What do you say to that, Minna?" I asked as they drove off.
"A happier mistake was never made, but I don't want him to do it again.
The only throne I care for is won now," and, reaching up on tiptoe, she
put up her face to mine for a tribute of my loyalty, and I paid it
willingly.
THE END
* * * * *
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